


The Candles All Aglow

by AuditoryCheesecake, uniqueinalltheworld



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Foster Family, Holiday Traditions, M/M, Minor Skinner/Dalish, Mutual Pining, Team AU Advent Calendar 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-09 18:13:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 37,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12893871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuditoryCheesecake/pseuds/AuditoryCheesecake, https://archiveofourown.org/users/uniqueinalltheworld/pseuds/uniqueinalltheworld
Summary: Tama seems to have misunderstood what Bull meant when he said that Dorian Pavus is a pain in his ass. She's decided that Dorian's coming to the Charger Family Holiday Celebration, and no matter how many times Bull tells her that as the school principal, he shouldn't be dating teachers, she won't give up.Dorian, who had firm plans to do nothing this holiday season, is not about to give up the opportunity to torture his boss. After all, there's a reason he gets along so well with his fourth graders.What's a bit of holiday subterfuge between strictly platonic and slightly adversarial co-educators?





	1. Tama Got Run Over By A Pavus

Dorian Pavus was running out of time. He had to get the arts and crafts supplies back to his classroom before Varric brought them all back inside. His fourth graders were going to make the best non-denominational holiday cards in the school, and for that, they needed near-lethal quantities of glitter.

He had completely legitimate reasons for running this late, of course: Theron had been using bad words and had to be taken to the office, Monica had been caught infringing on Clea’s intellectual property during coloring time, and to top it all off he’d had to help Emmauld find Monsieur Lapin for the third time that day, because there was no way Emmauld was going to recess without his rabbit. The point was, he was late, for reasons entirely valid and entirely not his fault, and so he took the last corner near the principal’s office a little faster than he should have.

He was not watching where he was going when he bumped into a stately-looking Qunari woman holding a lunchbox. Well, bumped was a mild term for it. Collided, maybe. Or crashed. Slammed might be a bit much, but sue him. They were working on synonyms this week. 

The metal lunchbox banged painfully against his ribs and he dropped everything in his arms as he slapped a hand over his mouth in order to not curse. He couldn’t very well ask his students not to say things that he didn’t, after all.

The glitter went everywhere, and Dorian cursed anyways. The red went mostly down Dorian’s front, the green and silver spun off somewhere to his right, and the blue, gold, purple, magenta, and white hit the bulletin board to his left, exploding in a shower of color.

The only thing in the entire hallway not covered in glitter was, inexplicably, the woman he had bumped into. Aside from a light dusting of teal on her curled horns, she appeared entirely clean. 

“I’m so sorry--” Dorian began.

The woman let out a low chuckle and extended her hand to pull him upright. “It is quite all right. You seem to have taken the brunt of the damage, at any rate.”

Dorian sighed as he allowed the stranger to help him to his feet, the movement dislodging a small secondary avalanche of magenta from his shoulders. It sparkled in the fluorescent hall lights and Dorian spared a corner of his brain to hope Ms. Montilyet didn’t have the yearbook camera today; she had a clear line of sight to him from her desk in the front office, and he had a stern-yet-kindly image to protect. Or he used to. There was a lot of glitter lodged in his mustache. “Very true. I’m Mr. Pavus. How may I help you?” 

“Call me Tama,” the woman said, “and no need. I am simply bringing lunch for my son, lest he forget to eat again.” She held up the metal lunchbox. Now that it was not being used to indent his ribcage, Dorian noticed Drog the Dragon emblazoned on the front and gave the container a fond smile. Drog had been off the air since Dorian was a teenager, but he was pleased to see that the cartoon dragon had become retro. 

“What grade is he in?” Dorian asked. “The fourth and fifth are at recess now, but the younger children should be in their classrooms. I can help you find him, if you want.”

“It is all right. I will simply drop it by the office.”

“Are you sure? It’s no trouble for me to--” it was trouble, actually, he was still running massively late, and the only person who had memorized the entire school roster was Principal Charger. Still, it was the polite thing to do and he was also a little inexplicably invested in keeping this woman happy. He didn’t have a sound logical reason for it, but his gut told him it was extremely important. 

“I am very sure. Thank you, Mr. Pavus.” She brushed some glitter off of his shoulder. “Are you perhaps Dorian Pavus?” she asked.

Dorian nodded cautiously.

“My son speaks very highly of you. You keep him on his toes.” 

Dorian tried to keep his surprise from showing. He thought he had met all of his students’ parents at the last parent-teacher night. He would certainly have remembered Tama. “That’s very kind of him. What did you say his name was?”

“I did not say,” she said, and then vanished into the office.


	2. Dear Santa, Bring Me A Man This Christmas

“I need you to memorize a phrase for me, okay Theron?” Bull asked. A headache was building between his temples, he could feel it. He could feel it and it was entirely Dorian Pavus’s fault. 

Theron nodded very seriously. 

“The next time Mr. Pavus tells you that a word you’ve said is a bad word, I want you to say ‘so is censorship,’ and then walk off. Can you do that?”

The small boy nodded, repeating the phrase back dutifully. 

“Great job, Theron. Now, I usually make fourth graders walk back to class with Ms. Montilyet, but I think you’re mature enough to handle it on your own."

“What did he say?” Tama asked from the doorway. Bull willed himself not to jump. The hint of a smirk playing at her lips told him he hadn’t succeeded. 

He sighed, signing a report and taking a sip of coffee before he answered. “Apparently, he said ‘capitalism.’” 

Tama didn’t laugh easily, but Bull saw the corners of her eyes crinkle with amusement. 

“He’s in fourth grade,” Bull explained. “Their teacher is… well--”

“Mr. Dorian Pavus, yes.” Tama closed the office door behind her. “I met him in the hall just now. He seems just like you described him.”

“Really?” Bull mostly described Dorian as a pain in his ass.

“He is a nice young man,” Tama decreed. “He offered to help me find your classroom. You forgot your lunch again.”

Bull took the box from her, Drog the Dragon glaring reproachfully up at him. “Thanks for bringing it.”

“Again.” She patted his cheek.

“Again,” he agreed.

“You know,” Tama said, in that completely casual tone that meant she had been looking for the best time to bring something up in conversation. “Cremisius has invited Lace to Christmas, and Rocky and Grim both have friends visiting over break as well. You should--”

Oh no, thought Bull. Which one of her book club friends has a single kid now?

“--bring your young man.”

“Sorry Tama, bring who?”

“The nice young man you are always talking about, every time you call. You are not at all subtle, Ashkaari.”

Bull wracked his brains, trying to think of which nice young man he told her about last. He couldn’t think of any. Herah was the only person he’d gone on more than one date with in the last six months, and Tama had hated her.

“Ashkaari, I am referring to Dorian.”

In his defense, Bull had spent his entire life trying to make his Tama happy, and at this point in the day his mouth was sort of on autopilot. “Oh! Of course! I’ll have to check with him about his schedule…”

“Good.” Tama nodded, pleased. “And send me an email with any allergies he has.” She kissed him on the cheek and left the office, the door clicking shut behind her.

Bull looked around the room. There was a second grader with a rapidly swelling lip sitting sullenly in the chair across from Josie.

“ _Capitalism_ ,” he muttered.


	3. For Goodness' Sake

Asking Dorian Pavus to be his fake date for the real holidays was, somehow, turning out to be even more complicated than Bull had anticipated it being. It started with a staff meeting. A staff meeting at which Bull was _trying_ to roll out a new continuing education initiative and also consume as much coffee as he could fit into his not-inconsiderable body and somehow, somehow, he was being thwarted at both of those things. 

“I just don’t see why we have to spend one of our weekends at a retreat listening to some old woman named Bertrude von Kittentears who hasn’t so much as smelled a classroom in twenty years tell us to do trust falls and explain to us how scaffolding works for elementary lesson plans.” 

Bull sighed. Krem had gotten him a little stovetop espresso maker for his birthday a few months back. It made up to six shots at once. He took a sip from his travel mug before answering. “Actually, Mr. Pavus, this one is run by a man named Zevran Aranai, it’s on the weekend because he teaches seventh grade science at Warden Academy Technical Prep, and the theme is positive behavioral support. As for the trust falls, I’ll be happy to let him know you’re interested. Maybe you could lead the rest of the faculty in the exercise.” 

Dorian let out an offended huff while Varric snickered. Bull really should have pressed his advantage and finished talking, but in his defense he really, really wanted to drink more coffee.

“So,” Isabela drawled, “when you say ‘positive behavioral support’ that means we’re being shunted off to attend a workshop on how to be warm and fuzzy about our disciplinary issues, yes?” 

“Well, instead of ‘disciplinary issues’ we’re trying to say ‘problem solving opportunities,’ but yeah that’s more or less the idea.” Bull loved his job, some of the time. Other times he was trying to convince a room full of grown adults that calling kids being shitty “problem solving opportunities” would be magically beneficial to their classrooms. He suppressed a sigh and began handing out worksheets. They were easy to fill out, just a short list of open-ended questions: what happened to upset me? What did I do about those emotions? How did my reaction affect others? What do I want others to do differently from now on? What will I do differently from now on?

Dorian raised his hand before Bull got halfway around the table, dangling the worksheet lazily between two fingers. “I don’t have any disciplinary issues, can I be excused from this training?”

“Respectfully, Mr. Pavus, you _are_ a disciplinary issue. And you don’t have any problem solving opportunities in your classroom because you shunt them all to my office out of, I assume, either sheer laziness or a lack of ability to do your job.” 

Bull had kept his tone light, entertaining, and he could tell from the tittering of the surrounding teaching staff that he had mostly succeeded. He was expecting Dorian to get a little huffy and snap something right back. He wasn’t prepared when his fourth grade teacher instead sat back quietly in his chair, looking oddly crestfallen. 

Bull was about to open his mouth, probably to make it worse somehow, when Isabela pushed her chair back from the conference table, deliberately dragging its legs against the linoleum with a loud screech. “Well, not that this hasn’t been a delightful meeting, but I now have ten minutes left to get my classroom ready for thirty children chomping at the bit to learn the recorder. You kiddies behave while I’m gone or I’ll broadcast the learning experience over the PA system.” She winked, more at Dorian than at Bull, and walked out the door. Her exit was echoed by a dozen or so other chairs all scooting out at once. 

“Dorian could I--” Bull looked up to see the other man already long gone. He thought he caught a flash of his plum colored blazer as he vanished through the conference room doors. 

“He’s got carpool duty at the end of the day,” Mr. Tethras was taking great care to situate his moleskine properly inside his leather briefcase while the others all left, not looking at Bull at all. “If you were looking to speak to him less publicly.” 

Bull blew out a slow breath. “I screwed up, didn’t I?”

Varric slung his bag over his shoulder and slid his copy of the worksheet off the table, glancing at it idly as he walked to the door. “I wouldn’t say that, sir. But I might encourage you to think about what you’ll do differently from now on.” 

Bull spent the rest of his morning feeling slightly guilty and very tired. He finished his espresso from home--he saw Josephine glance reprovingly at him when he drained it, but it didn’t stop him from refilling the mug with regular coffee from the staff pot. 

“You’ll pardon my saying this doesn’t really seem like a seven-coffee morning for you.” She was typing rapidly as she spoke to him, which was really just unfair. Bull screwed up typing stuff with both hands firmly on the keyboard and his eye on the screen. 

“That’s not my seventh coffee,” Bull protested, “I’ve only filled up this mug twice today.”

“It had six shots of espresso in it the first time, and you are trying to lose me in semantics. We have discussed the consequences of you doing that.” Josephine’s fingers didn’t even slow down. 

“Hey, just because this school would fall apart without you doesn’t mean... ah, shit. You’re right.” He belatedly glanced around to make sure there were no children within earshot. 

She held up a folder with one hand, the other now pecking out the last few letters of an email address and hitting send. “Speaking of that, I need you to sign off on the paperwork for the fourth and fifth grade air and space museum field trip. It will be difficult to make arrangements for it if we wait until after winter break.”

Bull obediently took the papers he was handed and began flipping through, signing where he needed to sign, and stealing Josephine’s sticky notes to remind him to call the people who needed calling. The annual trip, he thought with another twinge, was Dorian’s baby. The kids loved it, loved the whole two weeks of science and math activities leading up to it, and the superintendent loved their test scores afterwards. “I see I volunteered to chaperone this year.” 

“You are very generous with your time, Principal Charger.” 

Bull shrugged, and signed off on the chaperone form too. “I do like rocket ships. Hey, speaking of my generosity, is there anyone who could use a break from carpool duty today? I was thinking it might be a good afternoon to get back out there.” 

Bull could almost see Josephine shifting through files behind her eyes. “If I recall correctly, Mr. Pavus has worked carpool every day this year. Perhaps you could--” 

“Who’s worked second most? Let’s uh, let’s relieve them.” 

Josephine didn’t miss a beat, and Bull made a sudden, horrified mental note never to play poker with her. “You could always switch with Ms. Vallen. I believe she and Dorian are usually stationed near one another, so I’m sure Mr. Pavus would be happy to instruct you in the finer points of her responsibilities.” 

“Varric told you I screwed up, huh.” 

“Worse,” she said crisply. “Isabela ran into your mother at the Rivaini Market.” 

“Crap.” Bull took his folders and, bearing them like a shield, retreated into his private office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for this chapter goes entirely to Eugenideswalksintoabar/Uniqueinalltheworld because a Cheesecake was at work all day and was no help


	4. Here Comes Santa Claus, Here Comes Santa Claus, Right Down Carpool Lane

Dorian had the book Aveline had lent him in his bag, and a number of very pressing concerns about the sequel when he finally got outside in the afternoon for carpool duty.

Aveline wasn’t there. Bull was. 

They herded the children through the doors and onto the sidewalk, Dorian doing his level best not to let them spill over into the street. Bull’s end of the line was annoyingly perfect. There were parts of the pickup area where Dorian could actually see the yellow line the students were supposed to be standing behind, and he did not, repeat, did _not_ get so distracted watching Bull gently prise apart a pair of fighting second graders that he was nearly hit with some soccer mom’s Nissan Murano. 

Because he absolutely did not have any sort of schoolkid crush on Bull. That would be unprofessional and ill advised, and all sorts of other things that he told Varric every day. Not to mention, it was fairly obvious Bull didn’t think overmuch of him. 

So Dorian quelched his thoughts and directed the incoming cars, and Bull kept the kids in a perfectly orderly line, and they only had three minivans almost crash into each other, which was honestly probably a record low, and he politely deflected the mother who wanted for some godforsaken reason to have a parent teacher conference with him right in the middle of the carpool lane. And most of all he didn’t think about Bull.

He was so busy not thinking about Bull, in fact, that he walked almost directly into him as he was waving the very last of the cars back out into the main road. 

Bull stopped him with one hand braced on his shoulder and the other on the center of his chest, and Dorian suddenly had a lot of thoughts about Bull all at the same time.

“Yes?” he managed to say, in a tone only slightly more strained than normal.

“I uh,” Bull took his hands off Dorian and then rubbed anxiously at the base of one of his horns, which was a fine development. Perfectly fine. Dorian was not sad about it. “I just wanted to um, ask you if uh--wow, this is somehow even worse than I thought it would be.” 

“That is the general reaction to carpool duty, yes.” Dorian was trying very hard to meet Bull’s eye. Much like adult professionals did when talking to their bosses. Especially their bosses who had reprimanded them for mouthing off (again) earlier that very same day. 

“No, not the carpool thing, there’s um, something else.” 

“Are you dying?” Dorian asked. “I’ve never heard you say ‘um’ this many times...well, ever.”

“No it’s just, well, there’s kind of a weird situation.” He was still scratching at his horn, his elbow almost straight up in the air. As nervous tics went, it was not particularly subtle, and Dorian refused to find it endearing. “So, first of all, this is, this is very not me talking to you in my capacity as your employer right now. I wanna make that super clear. There are no consequences to you saying no. Or uh, well, none for you. There might be a couple for me. But that’s not to pressure you into--ugh.”

Dorian arched one eyebrow and waited for him to get a complete sentence together. 

“So, my mom. Uh, I call her Tama. Because, you know,” he gestured sort of helplessly to the horns on his head. “Anyways, Tama thinks, and I mean I don’t know why she-- it doesn’t matter why, but okay. So she thinks we’re in a relationship and I sort of panicked and told her I’d bring you home for Christmas. And Hanukkah. We’re also big on Hanukkah.” 

Dorian thought if he concentrated hard enough, he could probably hear the gears grinding together inside his own head. “What,” he said politely. 

“My Tama wants me to bring my boyfriend-- who she thinks is you-- to our family holidays this year. You can say no.”

“And your actual boyfriend can’t accompany you because...?”

“He doesn’t exist? I mean it’s not like I lied to her and said I had one. She just...” he waved a hand vaguely, “assumes things.”

“Wait,” Dorian said. “How does she even know that _I_ exist?”

“It’s possible, and I don’t wanna say probable here, but it is technically possible that I have mentioned you to her. Uh. Once or twice. Usually when you do something extra annoying.” 

“Often, then.”

Bull was fidgeting, now. “I wouldn’t say often, exactly, just... look, do you have holiday plans over the break? And if not, would you mind spending part of it pretending to be my fake boyfriend to make my mother happy?” 

Dorian, as it happened, did have holiday plans. Great holiday plans. They included his cat, some surprisingly tolerable Tevene takeout, and a bottle of moscato. He also had a deep and abiding streak of masochism. “Sure,” he said. “If it’ll make your mom happy.”  
“Great, that’s... really great. Thank you for this.” Bull gave him a surprisingly shy smile. “I really appreciate it.” 

“Anytime.” Dorian clapped him on the shoulder and then turned away before he could do anything else stupid. 

“Hey, uh, Mr. Pavus.” 

“You know my fake boyfriends usually call me Dorian,” said Dorian’s mouth. 

“Dorian,” and oh, giving Bull permission to use his first name was already a mistake. “I just wanted to say, about the staff meeting this morning, I--” 

Dorian shook his head, hoping his smile didn’t look too brittle. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” He headed for the staff parking lot as quickly as he dared. 

 

Tama was waiting for Bull when he got home. “Your tea has gone cold,” was her only acknowledgement of his entrance. She was still nursing a cup of her own. 

“You know I mostly drink coffee now, don’t you?” Despite saying it, Bull caught his finger in the handle of his tea mug and carried it to the microwave. It was a blend with some sort of orange and spice, deep red and scented heavily with citrus. 

Tama huffed softly. “I do. Every morning I drink assam and weep for my fallen son. You know you are taking money from my place of business when you do this, yes?”

“You give me tea for free whenever I ask for it. Doesn’t that save you money?”

She waved a hand, supremely unconcerned. “Do not talk back to your Tama, Ashkaari. It does not become you.”

The microwave beeped, and Bull pretended not to see Tama’s slightly repulsed face at the idea of _reheating_ tea. “Sorry I wasn’t here when you expected me. I uh, wound up volunteering to work the carpool lane so my third grade teacher could go home to her kids.” 

Tama patted his shoulder. “There is no reason to apologize. I am not the one who must now drink microwaved tea.” 

“I still feel bad, with you driving back home in the morning and all. I had meant to be home an hour or two earlier to cook something for you.” It was true. He didn’t like to think of Tama making the six hour drive back from the city alone tomorrow, even if her eyesight really was exactly as good as it always had been, it still felt lonely to Bull, in a way he was uncomfortable with. Maybe one of his book club’s parents were single. 

Tama did not actually say “bah” before rejecting his apology, but it was a near thing. “What you call cooking, I call reheating. You need not apologize for doing your job, Ashkaari. We will get take out tonight, which will be better than what you make when you have no direction, and I will see you again very soon.”

“Don’t remind me,” Bull groaned. “Do you know how much I have to do still in the, what, week? Before winter break starts?”

“I know of one thing. Did you speak to your young man?”

Bull sipped his tea. It was now, of course, scalding to the point of burning his tongue. “Dorian? Yeah, I spoke with him. He’s looking forward to it. Said anything to make you happy.” 

“He is a clever young man, indeed.”

“That’s more or less what I’m afraid of.”


	5. I'll Wait Up for You, Dude, Santa Buddy

“I’m not putting my tongue in your mouth.” 

Bull closed his office door and stared blearily at Dorian, who was sprawled out on a visitor chair. Specifically, the vistor chair that was sized for children. “It’s seven a.m. on a Monday, Mr. Pavus, I don’t think anyone really wanted that to happen right this moment.” 

“I’m not talking about now, I’m talking about when we visit your family for Hanukkah. And Christmas, I suppose.” His feet were up on Bull’s desk, his cherry brown shoes reflecting the desk light. 

Bull recovered enough to accept that this was his life now, and began putting away his briefcase, taking care to hide his Drog the Dragon lunchbox from Dorian. The man really had enough blackmail material to be getting on with already. “You think I tongue my dates in front of my Tama and siblings?” 

“No?” Dorian drew the response out like a question. 

“No.” Bull said firmly. 

“Right,” Dorian said. “So no tongue.”

“No tongue,” Bull confirmed. “We probably should talk about some ground rules.”

Dorian nodded. 

“Coffee?” Bull offered. 

“Please.” 

Bull stepped back out of his office door and busied himself with the coffee pot behind Josephine’s desk. “How did you even get in here?” 

“Oh, Josephine says to to tell you I’m the consequence of dishonesty.”

“Josephine’s mean,” Bull grumbled. The pot began hissing and burbling. Josephine herself never entered the main office before 8am unless someone was dying. Josephine took great pains to make sure no one was ever dying. 

“It’s something we have in common.”

“I’d describe you as cantankerous… capricious maybe. Definitely a pain in my ass-- but not _mean._ I don’t hire mean teachers.”

Dorian snorted. “You didn’t hire me.”

“See?” Bull gestured with a sugar packet. “That’s exactly the oppositional shit I’m talking about.”

Bull returned to his office and handed Dorian his favorite mug, the coffee with just enough cream to take it two shades off from black. He passed over a few sugar packets as well. Dorian dropped them next to his feet on the desk with a disdainful huff.

“I assume we can unilaterally rule out anything more than kissing,” Dorian said after he took a sip. Bull looked back up to meet his eyes.

“My Tama will probably expect us to share a room. The house is only so big.”

“That’s fine,” Dorian said quickly. “We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.” 

“That isn’t --never mind.” 

“You don’t sleep naked or anything, do you?”

“Not with guests,” Bulls said dryly. “Do _you?_ ”

“Not with you.” Dorian recrossed his legs on Bull’s desk and took a prim sip of coffee.

“Okay so that’s...settled, then. Probably. Uh, do you have any allergies or anything? Tama wants to know.” 

“latex, red potatoes, wool, all passion fruits, and beef.” 

“Beef?”

Dorian sighed. “Beef.” 

Bull let out an entirely inappropriate snigger.

“My life threatening medical problems amuse you?” 

“No-- it’s just--” he was wheezing a little “--don’t tell my siblings.” 

“Whyever not? What if they try to feed me a hamburger?”

“Number one, they are way more likely to steal my hamburger than gift you one, number two,” Bull gestured to himself. “The Iron Bull. Beef.” 

Dorian looked confused for a split second, then cracked up too. 

 

“So you know how I don’t have any real holiday plans?” Dorian asked. 

Varric, apparently half-asleep standing upright on the playground, jerked awake with a snort, which Dorian magnanimously chose to ignore. “Yeah, you’re drinking wine and complaining to your cat about how lonely you are.”

“Right, well, first of all, Harpyia is a terrific and beautiful companion and I am not lonely because she is the light of my life.” There was a game of kickball going on right next to the fence. Or, at least, some of the fourth and fifth grade students were kicking a ball near the fence and then running and screaming a lot. Dorian, if pressed on the matter, could probably explain it as some sort of exercise in the creative editing process. 

“Right,” said Varric. 

“Second, I still don’t have any real holiday plans.”

“Thanks for the update, Sparkler.” 

Dorian made a mental note to strangle whoever told Varric about the glitter incident. “But I do now have _fake_ holiday plans.” 

“Oo-kay?” 

“I need you to watch my cat.” 

“I hate your cat.” 

The kickball children had started to break up up into groups now, most of them heading back to the jungle gyms, though a few of the older kids were tossing the kickball back and forth with increasing velocity. He heard them actually say the word “velocity”, which was sort of like science, so..good on them, probably. He turned back to Varric. “Harpyia loves you,” he defended. “She just shows her love sort of...violently.”

“You better have a good reason, and a lot of wine at your house.”

Dorian was affronted. “I have both. Or, well, I have a very bad real reason, a very good fake reason, and eight bottles of extremely mediocre moscato.” 

“Stop holding me in suspense, Sparkler. And stop calling moscato wine.”

Dorian shrugged. Varric loved moscato. “It is possible I am going home with someone for Hanukkah. And Christmas. As his boyfriend.”

“You don’t have a boyfriend. You have your sad crush on the principal and a cat.” 

“As his fake boyfriend,” Dorian amended. “Uh, Principal Charger’s. Fake boyfriend. Specifically.”

Varric stared at him. 

Dorian watched Theron try to catch Emmeline’s passes. She had a number of inches on him, and a great throwing arm. It was not going well.

“This is the worst idea you’ve ever had, Dorian. And I’m including the time you tried to teach fourth graders how to make creme brulee.”

“It’s just to make his mother happy. She’s the one who thinks we’re dating.”

“This was _Bull’s_ idea?” Varric rubbed his chin. “Shit. Does he know that you…?” he waved his hand in a tactful summation of _are hopelessly obsessed with your boss and are now weirdly spending the holidays with him?_ “...you know.” 

“Of course not!”

“That’s good, then?” Varric suggested.

They watched the young, innocent frolicking. How free those children were, unburdened by shit like stupid crushes and terrible, terrible lies. Emmaline’s throw hit Theron square on the mouth. He yelped a word Dorian couldn’t quite make out and then began to cry. 

“Am I fucked, Varric?” He reached for the first aid kit behind him. He probably wouldn’t actually need it, but it would make them all feel better. Emmaline looked like she might start to cry too. 

“Yeah, Sparkler. You definitely are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uniqueinalltheworld: The word was definitely capitalism. Also all of the allergies are real things I am actually allergic to except for beef, which was stolen from one of my classmates for comic effect, but is a real allergy, apparently. Immune systems are wild, guys. 
> 
> Also, yes, the chapter title is from Michael Buble's Magnum Bropus, "Santa Buddy," because every time we hear that steaming pile of no homo, we laugh until we can't breathe.


	6. God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen

“As a corollary to the ground rules,” Dorian said as soon as Bull answered, “Tell me everything I need to know about your family.”

“This is a school phone, Dorian.” 

Dorian frowned at Bull’s voice on the other end of the line. “I know. You never gave me your cell number.” He was chopping vegetables as he spoke, his cell phone pressed to his cheek. He rarely had plans on Fridays, which made them excellent for meal planning. It wasn’t sad to reheat single servings of spaghetti for dinner every night if he made the sauce himself from scratch because he was healthy, busy, and environmentally conscious.

No, the sad part was the way being on the phone with Bull while making dinner made him feel all wistful. 

“Besides,” he continued, sliding the carrots into a bowl, “I’m just getting into character. I’m a rather demanding boyfriend, and I’ll tell your Tama up front that I think you spend too many late nights at the office.”

“It’s five pm. When I taught your grade I was here until eight or nine half the time.” 

Dorian made a noise that described what he thought of _that._ “People always told me I had big shoes to fill. I figured it was just a statement of literal fact.”

“When do you do your lesson plans, then?”

“I don’t. They spring forth from my mind fully formed, like the birth of Athena.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I stand at the front of the classroom and channel the muses of education as I impart to my fortunate pupils the pure, unadulterated truths-- geography, geometry, and um. Geophysics.”

“I don’t remember fourth grade student learning outcomes requiring geophysics.”

“They’re very advanced fourth graders,” Dorian sniffed. 

“Either way, I’m not having this conversation on my office phone. Tell you what, let me finish up this cr-capitalism and then I’ll take you out to dinner.”

“Tell the capitalists I want a bigger Christmas bonus,” Dorian said. 

“You’re a public school teacher, Dorian. You don’t get a Christmas bonus.” 

“Then you’re paying for my sushi tonight.”

“Sushi, huh? I’ll pick you up at six thirty.” 

“Can’t wait,” Dorian said, taking out any emotions he might or might not be having on the can opener.

“See you soon, then,” Bull said, and hung up the phone.

This was the worst idea Dorian had ever had. He dropped the can opener on the counter and went to agonize in his closet.

 

Bull, of course, didn’t comment on Dorian’s final choice of jeans and a cardigan, but he did smile, and Dorian felt nice and not like he was trying to seduce anyone, which was the general opposite of how he usually felt on dates. Not that this was a date. It was an informational interview. Dorian needed every possible scrap of information on Bull’s family, just in case someone found them out or talked to him at all.

He suffered through Bull’s small talk with the waiter before he put down his menu and knocked back a cup of sake. 

“First of all,” he said, “how many people are you expecting me to meet?”

Bull had to count on his fingers. That really should have been Dorian’s first warning. “So there’s me, and my Tama. that’s two. Then there’s Krem and his girlfriend Harding, Skinner, her wife Dalish, and their two kids. Stitches and his partner, Grim and his girlfriend, and Rocky. And I think Tama said something about Rocky bringing his roommate, but I’m not sure. So... twelve, maybe thirteen?”

Dorian was glad he thought to bring a notepad. “Is that all?” he asked mildly. 

“Well there's also a cat. We love him. He’s awful. His name is Spork.”

Dorian noted down Spork’s name at the top of the list.

“And there will probably be some neighbors around but no one will expect you to remember them.”

Dorian highly doubted that. “I need diagrams.”

“Look, Dorian, it’s not that I don’t appreciate all the effort you’re putting in but...why? We’re not actually dating.” 

“You love them,” Dorian replied. “You talk about them all the time. If we want to have any hope of fooling your family into _thinking_ that we’ve been dating seriously enough, and for long enough, for you to bring me to meet them, then I need to seem like I’ve listened to at least ninety solid hours of you gushing about your feelings about them. At the very least I need to know their names.”

“That’s really...” Bull looked utterly poleaxed. “That’s really nice. Um. thank you.” 

“Less thanking, more talking.” Dorian could blame the heat in his cheeks on the sake. “You said you celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas?” 

“And Yule, though that’s mostly Rocky making a speech before we eat dinner and light a bonfire in the back yard. Eid is really my holiday, and Tama’s, though that’s a little ways off. And Christmas is when it’s easiest to get time off, so that ended up being the big one once everyone had jobs and stuff.”

“Not to be rude, but _why?_ ” That was just... so many more holidays than Dorian even wanted to think about.

“Well, when it was just me and Tama, we just did our own thing. But then we took Krem in, and he’s Jewish, so it’s not like we were going to make him stop celebrating Passover and Purim and stuff.” Bull took a sip of water. “And then we added Christmas when we added Stitches and Skinner. And then she went though a _huge_ Maccabee phase, though that was more the beginning of her being-in-love-with-Dalish phase.”

“Slow down!” Dorian said, scribbling madly.

“Rocky’s always been a little... earthy, and Grim’s pretty much atheist but he still likes the parties.” 

“You’re all adopted,” Dorian realized belatedly. 

Bull pulled out his phone and turned it towards Dorian. Bull’s lockscreen was a picture of himself with six other people, none of whom looked remotely related, at least by biology, in a dimly lit bar. “This was Grim’s twenty-first birthday.” He pointed to a blond human wearing a very important-looking tiara. It had both pink rhinestones and feathers on it. Everyone but Bull, who appeared to be in charge of the selfie stick, had a beer in one hand and a shot glass in the other. 

“That’s Skinner,” Bull continued as Dorian tried to take in the appallingly radiant smile on Bull’s face in the picture, “and that’s Dalish, before they got married. She lived with us for a while too when they were in high school-- And Krem-- he’d just gotten promoted that week, so we were sort of celebrating him, too. And Rocky--he and Grim are both still in college.” 

Dorian let the sound of Bull’s voice wash over him, his pen moving furiously across the page. If he wound up reverting to fourth-grade level idea webs for his notes, well, no one else was meant to see them, anyways. Bull spoke at length, and in detail, about his siblings, their habits, their courses of study. Dorian had never seen him so at ease without a nine year old nearby. 

“I need to show you Spork,” Bull said suddenly, jolting Dorian out of his reverie.

He took the phone back, and it wasn’t until Bull sat back in his chair that Dorian realized how far he’d been leaning over the table. He ignored the tiny thread of disappointment that engendered and went back to make sure he’d spelled everyone’s name correctly. 

Their waiter came back then, prompting Bull to scramble madly for the menu and ask thirty questions about the restaurant's specialty sushi rolls before ordering the love boat-- something Dorian saw on nearly every sushi menu, and yet had never gotten up the courage to ask for, even on real dates.

“We can split the leftovers,” Bull assured him, like that was the problem. Fifty pieces of romantic sushi did pose a small logistics issue, but it wasn’t the _problem_ here. 

The problem was the next picture Bull showed him, which was of Spork, the small mountain’s-worth of gray cat. And the person holding him, a serene smile on her face, and her hair tucked neatly behind her curled horns, who Dorian recognized immediately.

“That’s your Tama?” he asked weakly.

“Yeah,” Bull said, “why?”


	7. Making A List And Checking It Twice

“So I’ve been thinking,” Bull started. He left Sten’s bakery, a box of cookies in one hand and his phone in the other.

“You really ought to have started doing that earlier, you know. Before you got us roped into this fake dating nonsense, perhaps?” 

Bull soldiered on, as one often had to do to hold a conversation with Dorian. “I’ve been thinking about what you said, that my family might be able to tell that we haven’t been… dating very long.”

There was a long pause on the other end of Bull’s cell. “And?” 

“We should probably decide how long we’ve been… dating.” He dropped the cookies on his passenger seat and started his car. Two dozen madeleines would last him a week, five days if he shared them with Josephine. He probably should.

“Oh. Oh, of course.” Dorian sounded strange.

Bull turned on speakerphone and put his cell on the console. “You okay, Dorian? You know you can still back out any time. I don’t want you to feel like--” 

“No, it’s fine. I’m happy to do it. Who else would suffer this level of indignity for their art?”

Bull laughed. “Only you, I guess. So, can we get our story straight?” 

Dorian started talking immediately. “We met at school, obviously. That’s easy enough. We could say our relationship started... last year? During a late night of preparation for the Air and Space Museum trip?” 

Bull frowned. “Seems a little sleazy, doesn’t it? Me just grabbing you and kissing you over a conference table? You deserve more than that, you know. Let’s throw in some actual wooing and shit.”

“You would woo me?” Dorian sounded amused. “This I must hear.” 

“Well, okay, first of all-- do you like tea?” He finally remembered to pull out of his parking space.

There was a soft crackle of sound on the phone. Bull imagined Dorian sprawling out on his couch, legs draped over an arm. It was a good look for him. He seemed so rarely at ease, in the real world. “I do.” 

“Don’t forget to tell my Tama that. And also… how about I asked you out to tea _after_ a late night planning the Air and Space Museum. We went to this cute little place I know on 9th Street and then for a walk in the park--”

“And then we went back to my place to ‘look over lesson plans’ and ‘drink more tea’?” Dorian asked slyly.

“Maybe,” Bull said thoughtfully. “Or I took you out the next night too, to the sort of fancy restaurant where you have to wear a tie, and you dazzled me with your knowledge of wines and expensive food.”

“Why are you the only one taking me out?” Dorian demanded. “I invited you to my friend’s play the next week, and then we went to the afterparty, which was late and scandalous and altogether too much fun. I finally seduced you, and then seduced you again in the morning with my homemade croissants.”

“Which play?” Bull asked. “They’ll want to know.”

“They want to know which play but not the details of me painstakingly creating homemade pastries for you to indulge in?”

Bull chuckled. “They’ll want you to make the pastries for them, too.”

“Fine. Sera Jenny-- they can google her. She’s in a well-regarded improv comedy troupe.”

“The Red Jennies?” Bull asked. “I’ve seen them.”

“As well you should have. They’re quite good. And I already know Sera would lie to the cops for me, so your family shouldn’t be too bad.”

Bull flicked his turn signal and let out a nervous laugh. “Right. Not too bad. So, uh... after that we were...a thing, I guess?”

“We kept it quiet, because of your position, naturally. Who can remember an exact date anymore?”

Bull, usually. “People don’t normally remember the moment they fell in love with you?”

There was another long pause. Dorian must be doing something else at the same time. Maybe reading? What sort of books did he read? Bull should ask. “Can’t say I’ve got much experimental data on that question,” Dorian said finally.

“Well, I know for sure that I would remember. And my family knows that too, so...” Bull cut off a soccer mom in an SUV, but in his defense she had been tailgating him for the past half a mile. “It was a teaching observation. You were reading something to one of your fourth graders, because they were having trouble with some vocabulary terms. You were just… really patient and...” This was actually becoming much more personal than Bull thought it would. “...kind, I guess? Like, you’re smart. I’ve always known that, but I care more that you’re kind.” 

Dorian cleared his throat. “You realized you loved me while I was just doing the job that I do every day? Are you sure you wouldn’t rather it be while I serenaded you or saved you from falling bookshelves or something?”

“Nah.” Bull was become more sure of this the longer he thought about it. “If I’m in love with you, I’m in love with the way you are all the time, right?” 

“Right,” Dorian agreed softly.

“Hey,” Bull said, acting on a sudden impulse, “I’m actually in your area-- there’s this bakery near you that I like-- do you want me to come over? This might be an easier conversation to have in person. I think you were right about taking notes.”

For a moment, Bull was sure that Dorian would say no. “Of course. I’d be happy to see you.” 

“Great,” Bull was already making the turn. “I’ll see you in a couple minutes.” 

“I’ll get dressed,” Dorian said, and hung up the phone.

Dorian was, in fact dressed when Bull pulled down his driveway, wearing a green argyle sweater vest, a pair of dark slacks that fit him quite nicely, and a wry smirk as he leaned on his doorframe. 

“Would you like some tea?” he called as Bull stepped out of his car.

“Are you trying to seduce me, Dorian?”

“Oh, always.” Dorian closed the door behind them. “Sit in the living room, I’ll bring my notes.”

He came in moments later, bearing two cups of what smelled like orange spice. “This one is my favorite. If you hate it there’s coffee and some other things in the refrigerator. I’m not really stocked for having guests.” Their fingers brushed as Dorian slid the mug into Bull’s hands. “Or, at least, not tea-drinking ones. Usually it’s more of a bring-your-own-bottle type of affair.” 

Bull huffed. His mug had _Self-Rescuing Princess_ written on the side of it, along with a drawing of a yellow crown. “Orange spice is perfect. Thank you.” 

Dorian pulled a folder off a bookshelf and dropped it on the coffee table with an impressive _thunk_. He sat down on the couch next to Bull and opened it, leafing through a notebook. Bull caught glimpses of multiple flow charts and the word SPORK written in illustrated bubble letters before Dorian stopped on a mostly blank page.

“So we started dating last November,” Dorian said, writing as he talked. “The tea, the restaurant, you stayed over, then the play-- repetition will help us remember-- did we go anywhere together over the summer? I taught some summer school, but I had a lot of free time in August.”

“A weekend on the beach, then?” Bull suggested. “Nowhere in Antiva, Krem was there at some point.”

“I thought you hated the beach.” Dorian frowned.

Bull couldn’t remember ever mentioning that, even if it was sort of true. “I hate the storm coast,” he amended. “And a lot of the shit rainy ones further north. Rivain’s nice, though. Or someplace like Lake Calenhad.” 

“There’s a _wonderful_ history museum at Calenhad.” Dorian lit up. “Let’s go there.”

“Sounds good.” Bull grinned at him, watching as Dorian curled up on the couch, careful to keep his feet several inches from Bull’s leg the whole time.

“We should do something about this,” Bull gestured to the space between them. 

“My couch?” It was a little shabby, but I mean, hey, so was Bull’s. Public school salary and all that. 

“The very professional distance that we’re maintaining. It’s… fine… under other circumstances, but if this is going to be convincing, we need to be able to touch each other.”

“Do we really?” Dorian said, sounding extremely put upon, but he shifted closer to Bull on the couch. Barely.

“I mean, only if you’re okay with it. We could also tell them you’re not comfortable with public displays of affection. They’d understand.” Probably. It would take a long time to explain to Dorian why it would hurt their feelings to be considered “public.” But he could probably rationalize it to them, if Dorian really didn’t want to. 

Dorian rolled his eyes. “Fine.” He launched himself across the couch, shoving his head under Bull’s arm and narrowly missing spilling both their teas. “We’re cuddling. Happy?” 

Though he chose not to examine why too closely, Bull was.


	8. Over The River And Through The Woods

Dorian held up yet another cardigan. 

“Oh, I like that green, Sparkler. It brings out your eyes.” Varric took another swig of moscato, and Sera sniggered. 

“Yeah. Very fuckable green, there,” she contributed. Sera had a bottle of sparkling wine gripped by the neck, and she was sprawled bonelessly over the edge of Dorian’s bedspread, drinking upside-down, Harpyia nestled sleepily on her stomach. 

“I own nothing but green sweaters, apparently, and I loathe you both.” Dorian threw the emerald cardigan into the bottom of his suitcase anyways. It _did_ bring out his eyes. 

“Is it true you cuddled with him?” Varric asked abruptly. “Because that would be hilarious. Also I’ve definitely seen you in some purple blazers.”

“It wasn’t my idea.”

Sera shrieked and pointed at him. “You _did!_ ” 

Dorian tried very hard to sound haughty and superior. “ It’s hard to pull off fake dating when you’re visibly uncomfortable touching one another. And anyway, he suggested it, not me.” 

“You agreed to it, though,” Varric argued. “As a semi-professional hanger-on, let me tell you, that’s worse.” 

Dorian busied himself with his suitcases so Varric couldn’t see him wince. “Have you given Daniel’s terrifying single mother a call, Varric?”

“No,” Varric mumbled into his wine bottle. “She’s too terrifying.”

“Then I’ll thank you to stay out of my love life until you do.” 

Sera, whom Dorian had precious little blackmail material on, squinted at him. “No, it’s worse somehow. I know that look. He’s gone an’ done something with extra helpings of stupid.” 

“I did no such thing!” Dorian couldn’t control the way his face heated, but he could damn well control whether Sera got a real rise out of him. Probably.

“Did you fuck him?” 

“No!” that denial was far too emphatic, honestly. 

“Varric, what’s worse than fucking?” Sera drained the last of her champagne. 

Varric looked thoughtful, and Dorian had never wished more emphatically that he could set people on fire with his mind. “Nothing comes to mind. Unless...” shit. “...did you literally sleep with him?”

“I just told you I didn’t fuck him,” Dorian snipped, but the game was up. 

Harpyia jumped ship as Sera cackled herself right off Dorian’s bed. “You fell asleep on the principal,” she wheezed. 

“He was comfortable!” Dorian defended. “And I felt...” good? Warm? Safe? Genuinely cared for, for once in his life? “...nice,” he finished lamely. 

“Nice,” Varric echoed. The dwarf opened his mouth to start in again, but that was the moment Harpyia chose to dig her claws into the tender arch of his foot, and whatever Varric was going to say was lost in a howl of profanity.

Dorian loved his cat. He really truly did. 

 

Bull pulled up in front of Dorian’s house at ten thirty, exactly when he said he would. 

Dorian had been packed and ready with his coat on for ten minutes, because he'd woken up in an anxious sweat an hour before his alarm and, despite Varric and Sera’s best attempts to make him late by needling him and being generally difficult, he’d had nothing to do besides fix his hair for the last twenty minutes. He did need the full twenty minutes, considering the frequency of Sera’s attempts to re-ruffle it. 

Bull stepped out of his car, grinning at Dorian. He was wearing... Dorian supposed it wasn’t technically a Christmas sweater. It featured a lot of red and a great deal of polar bears, but there was nothing explicitly symbolic on it. It was merely painfully festive. Dorian supposed that would make sense, since Bull apparently didn’t celebrate Christmas, personally. 

It would be a stretch to say the sweater looked good on Bull, but Bull did manage to look good in the sweater. Dorian checked for the upmteenth time ot make sure his notes were securely in the inside pocket of his blazer, which was in fact plum today, fuck you very much Varric, and stepped outside, locking his door behind him. 

Bull came up the steps and took one of Dorian’s suitcases. After an almost imperceptible moment of hesitation, he leaned down and kissed Dorian on the cheek.

Dorian, not having raised his emotional barriers and donned his platonic charade just yet, was thunderstruck.

“Just getting into character,” Bull said cheerfully. When Dorian made a vague, comprehending noise at him, Bull let his arm rest at Dorian’s back as he guided him down the front steps, stealing Dorian’s other suitcase in the process. 

He deposited them both in his trunk with a great deal of care, and Dorian had only a moment to wonder how on earth Bull was packing all of his own items into one, smaller suitcase before the trunk was shut and Bull was grinning at him again. “Ready?” 

“As I’ll ever be.” Dorian slid into the passenger seat before Bull could do something truly awful like _hold the door for him_.

“Do you mind stopping for fast food while we drive, or do you want to find an actual sit-down restaurant for meals? It’ll take us about six hours, not counting stops.”

Six hours. Dorian was going to die. “I’d prefer a break to stretch my legs and drink coffee, but I feel like we won’t be hurting for food once we arrive.”

Bull laughed. “Probably not. Tama raised six kids, sometimes more. She’s always got food.”

Dorian hesitated before he buckled his seatbelt. Bull did too. This was his last chance to back out of this terrible, terrible idea.

“Alright then,” he said. “Let’s go.”

 

The drive through the foothills of the Frostbacks was actually quite pleasant, once Dorian got over the sheer number of shaggy cows staring dolefully at him. 

They stopped a little more than halfway there for coffee, and Dorian could only hope Bull interpreted his relief as a response to the fresh air and ability to stretch his legs. He hadn’t anticipated-- though he really, really should have-- the particular sort of torture that was listening to Bull sing along to Christmas carols on the radio. 

“You should sing in the faculty talent show this spring,” he said as they waited in line. It was his tragic lack of a latte that had eroded his filter.

He might have imagined Bull’s flush, but it was much harder to ignore the hand that came up to scrub at the base of Bull’s horns. “I dunno. I usually just pick heavy things up and put them down.” 

“I noticed,” Dorian told him, his throat going a little dry at the memory. “You’re, ah, quite talented in that area, too.” 

Bull huffed a laugh, then used Dorian’s distraction to pay for both of their lattes, which really was quite rude of him. 

Dorian waited by the counter while Bull disappeared to find a restroom, and shot Felix a pre-Hannukah text. He would tell him the whole story later. After it was over. He absolutely did not need his voice of reason anywhere nearby over the next week.

“Your boyfriend’s hot,” the barista said when they put down the lattes.

“He’s not--not too bad looking,” Dorian fumbled the question. 

The barista grinned at him. “That’s one way to put it. Those shoulders.” They whistled evocatively. 

Dorian knew he was blushing. He wasn’t sure whether he was embarrassed or jealous. He shouldn’t--

“Got everything you want, sweetheart?” Bull’s hand slid back around Dorian’s waist, and Dorian absolutely refused to melt into it. 

“As much of it as I need, I think.” 

The barista gave Dorian one last wink as he and Bull walked out. 

“Not too bad looking?” Bull asked. “That’s high praise, coming from you.”

“I wouldn’t recommend getting used to it.”

“I won’t. Hey, would you mind driving some of the way? I need to text my Tama to let her know when we’ll be there. And Josie too.”

“I get to pick the music,” Dorian said.

“As long as it’s not Rafi,” Bull agreed. “Nadine and Rhiannon are _still_ not over him. I don’t get it. Rhiannon’s ten!”

It took dorian entirely too long to remember that Rhiannon and Nadine were Bull’s nieces. He hurried to the trunk and dug through his smaller suitcase. Bull followed along, bemused.

“Here,” Dorian said, shoving his flashcards into Bull’s hands. “While I’m driving, you quiz me. There’s still time. I can still memorize everything I need to.”

“You made flashcards?” 

“Of course I made flashcards.” Dorian climbed into the driver’s seat and slid it far enough forward that he could reach the pedals. “I made them while my fourth graders were making their own to study over break. I don’t actually expect any of _them_ to practice good learning strategies if they’re not in the classroom with me breathing down their necks, but I can certainly model them.”

He ignored Bull’s little smile and focused on pulling out of the parking lot. Bull directed him back to the highway and then leafed through the cards.

“Okay. Which of my siblings have kids?”

“Only Stitches and Dalish,” Dorian answered promptly. “Rhiannon’s ten and Nadine is… seven.”

“Got it in one! What’s Tama’s favorite tea?”

Dorian thought hard for a moment. “Assam.”

“Right again!” Bull sounded far too encouraging. Dorian felt like a fourth grader. He wished the emotion was demeaning, rather than making him feel reassured. “You will literally never need to know that, you realize.”

Dorian rolled his eyes and gestured for Bull to continue with his inquisition.

“What’s Stitches’ partner called?”

“Retha. They’re head of surgery and Stitches is chief physician at Denerim Children's’ Hospital. Everyone in your family is disgustingly successful. Aren’t Dalish and Skinner both lawyers?”

“Tama’s very proud of all of us.” Bull beamed. “Who’s still in school?”

“Rocky is doing graduate work in chemical engineering, and Grim’s-- he’s a junior in college, I know that. I forget what he’s studying.”

“He’s majoring in stage management at Ferelden Arts. That one’s not too crucial. He might talk about this year’s plays a little, but mostly he’s just gonna mainline espresso and judge you.”

“There’s a reason I’m an elementary school teacher and not a college professor,” Dorian sighed. “And college students are a major factor.”

Bull shuffled the cards again--Dorian tried to keep his eyes on the road, rather than the surprising lightness of Bull’s fingers. “Speaking of, what do you want to tell them about… Tevinter, and all that? ‘None of their business’ is totally an acceptable answer, but just in case they ask.” He sounded unforgivably gentle.

Dorian put all of his attention into not careening into one of the other cars on the highway. “I don’t believe I ever mentioned Tevinter.”

Bull sounded uncomfortable, and perhaps a touch guilty. “That’s kind of what got me thinking I might need to ask about it. It’s... I know things there are still....”

“A bit less progressive than here, yes.” Dorian adjusted the cruise control. It really wasn’t proper to be going five over the speed limit, after all. 

“Krem’s Tevinter.” Bull said awkwardly. “I mean, I doubt he had your exact life experiences or something but....I know people who leave tend to carry a lot of baggage from there.”

Dorian snorted suddenly, overcome with memory. “Actually, when I left I was carrying a backpack of clothes and a milk crate with seventeen books in it, if you must know.” 

Bull let out a slow breath. “Yeah, fuck Tevinter. Seriously.” 

“I’ll drink to that. This evening, perhaps.” Dorian considered the issue immediately before them. “Let’s just go with ‘I’m sure I’ll find your family far more welcoming than my own,’ and leave it at that.” He tried saying it with an airy wave of his hand. Judging from the silence in the passenger seat, his response wasn’t as lighthearted as it had sounded in his head. 

“Okay,” Bull said. “But just know Dalish might try to hug you and feed you chocolate if you say that. And um. I might too.”

“It sounds really sad doesn’t it.” Dorian glanced into the rearview mirror.

“Yeah,” Bull sighed, laughing a little too. “It sounds really fucking sad.” 

“While we’re asking the tough questions,” Dorian said in a transparent attempt to change the subject, “what the hell is your first name?” 

Bull laughed, and Dorian loathed how easily the sound diffused the tension in the car. “My legal first name is Ashkaari. But everyone’s called me Bull since I was eight and on a kiddie roller derby team. Some nicknames just stick.”

“Which would you prefer, then?” Dorian found himself smiling. “Should I call you Ash, perhaps, or Kaari?”

“Bull works just fine for me. But I think pet names are cute.”

Dorian was doomed. “I’ll keep that in mind."


	9. If You Want To Be Happy In A Million Ways

At Bull’s direction, They pulled into the driveway of a house that was at once everything and nothing like Dorian had expected it to be. It was built into the side of a hill, and disguised with a great deal of shrubbery and what Dorian thought might be, in summer at least, a positively riotous garden, giving it the impression of a house much quainter and more nondescript than the reality. 

The reality was a large A-frame, sitting squarely on the aesthetic line between house and cabin, with an addition that sprawled backwards, clearly added later than the building of the first house, but with an eye to maintaining a consistent look over the whole. It had to be worth, Dorian realized, a staggering amount of money. “You said your mother ran a tea shop?” he asked Bull. 

“Yeah,” Bull answered cheerfully. “It’s sort of her retirement gig.” 

“What did she do before that?” Dorian wanted to know, but Bull had already given his shoulder a reassuring squeeze and ducked out of the car. 

Dorian climbed out, much more slowly, emerging just in time to see two person-sized blurs streak past him and leap into Bull’s arms. It warmed his heart, to see how much Bull’s nieces loved him.

They were not Bull’s nieces, he saw when Bull dropped his suitcase to scoop them both up. They were fully grown adult women who, if Dorian was remembering his flashcards right, had children of their own. They were screaming and laughing as Bull spun them around before replacing them neatly on the driveway. 

“And who is this?” asked the dark-haired woman. Skinner, Dorian thought. He was momentarily surprised by the thickness of her accent. “Did you finally bring someone home to us?”

“Guys,” Bull said grandly, “this is Dorian.”

“How do you feel about hugs, Dorian?” asked Skinner. It sounded like a threat. 

“Um, fine, I think, probably I--” They were on him like barnacles before he finished stammering.

“Good.” The voice came from somewhere near his armpit. 

Bull was grinning at the group of them, and the fondness in his eyes was quite simply unacceptable to Dorian. 

“Uncle Tibby!” yelled a high pitched voice behind him. “Uncle Tibby’s here!”

Rhiannon and Nadine were almost as fast as their mothers. 

“Tibby?” Dorian repeated.

“T. I. B. The Iron Bull.” Dorian thought the response might have come from Dalish, though the woman in question was still tucked under his chin, so it was hard to tell. “He signs all his cards like that.”

“Really,” Dorian said, watching Bull spin his nieces at an even higher velocity than their mothers had achieved.

“Krem and Grim aren’t here yet,” Skinner said, releasing Dorian at last, “but you have to come meet everyone else.”

Dalish led him towards the house by one arm, leaving Bull, Skinner and the girls with the bags.

Tama was on the porch, wearing a flour-specked apron over some sort of insulated coveralls. It made her look both homey and somehow even taller than she was. “Dorian,” she intoned. 

“Hello, um. Mrs. Charger,” he stammered. Dalish broke into hysterical giggles beside him.

“Tama,” she corrected severely. She seemed like the sort of person who did everything a little bit severely. She held her arms open and Dorian saw no recourse but to be hugged. “We are glad to see you here.” 

She turned to Bull as soon as he bounded up the steps, a niece under each arm. Dorian, released once more, turned to Dalish for direction. She seemed , so far, to be the most understanding of his overwhelmed state, perhaps because she hadn’t grown up with the Chargers, either.

She directed him into the house, which was blessedly warm and smelled of cinnamon. The main room of the house combined the best parts of a living room and kitchen, and seemed to be completely full of people, once they all crowded in through the door.

Bull introduced him, in quick succession, to Stitches and Retha, Rocky, and Rocky’s roommate, Navid. Retha was tall, but far less imposing than the other two Qunari in the room. They seemed incapable of imposing on anyone, with their thick glasses, long skinny limbs, and beaming smile. They enveloped Dorian in the apparently-traditional Charger Family Hug.

Navid, a dark-skinned elf claiming only the title of roommate, nodded absently from the couch and went back to absolutely pummeling Rocky at some sort of fighting game. 

Dorian hovered awkwardly as Bull ricocheted from one person to the next, half following along behind him.

He sidled over to Tama. “I can bring our bags to Bull’s room?” he offered hesitantly.

Tama gave him a nod Dorian chose to interpret as approving and led him down a hallway off the kitchen. 

Looking at the door, Dorian realized he might have been able to guess that it was Bull’s, and that it had been for a long time. It had been inexpertly painted a dark-ish shade of pink, with stickers of cartoon dragons stuck haphazardly across the lower two thirds. Drog the Dragon, specifically. Dorian really should have guessed. There were also twin gouges in the top of the door frame, presumably from Bull’s horns.

Tama followed his gaze with a fond smile. “My Ashkaari leads with his head. And he often forgets to duck when it is good for him.” She opened the door and returned to the main room. 

Dorian shuffled into Bull’s childhood bedroom, lugging his own bags behind him as well as Bull’s. He dropped them on the floor and searched around for a lightswitch. The sun set so early this time of year, he was still getting used it it.

He found one, after stubbing his toes more than once on unidentifiable objects. It turned on a number of small lamps around the room, rather than one large overhead light. On the whole, the room was utterly charming.

The walls held a collage of neatly but cheaply mounted charcoal sketches and photographs, each in its own cardstock frame. Dorian recognized some of the subjects: younger versions of family members he had met already, smiling and laughing. There was a portrait of a sharp-boned human man, frowning in concentration that Dorian thought must be Krem, another of Skinner, caught mid-gesture with what appeared to be a switchblade, and even a picture of Dalish, her tattoos painstakingly traced to be accurate even on the small, smudgy cardstock. There were also things he didn’t recognize, mountains and buildings he knew he had never seen, and a few oil paintings that turned out to be sharply detailed studies of animals and fruits, but the portraits took up the most space. 

Strings of soft fairy lights circled the upper walls, and trailed down on either side of the large window that looked out over the garden behind the house. There were bookshelves, filled with everything from comic books to yearbooks, fantasy novels and textbooks. A guitar leaned on a stand in a corner near the closet, and Dorian recognized the case of a small but powerful portable telescope next to it. 

It was nothing like what Dorian had expected, and yet somehow exactly right, an odd sort of time capsule of everyone Bull had ever been mingled with the person he was now. He felt a twinge of longing for his own childhood bedroom, though surely it had been long since cleaned out and repurposed for something else. 

Something sneezed.

Dorian spun around, searching for the source, eventually zeroing in on Bull’s bed--spacious for one person, a bit cozy for two and covered with a pale blue duvet--which he had been studiously avoiding doing until this moment.

A large gray lump, that he’d at first taken to be a comforter or pillow, slowly unfolded into a vaguely cat-shaped object. Spork was a little too long to be graceful, and enormously fat, even more so than he had appeared in pictures. He blinked dolefully at Dorian and sneezed again.

Besotted, Dorian stretched out one hand to the cat. Spork sniffed him carefully, then licked his finger. His breath smelled like a thousand mariners dying. Dorian loved him. 

He sat down on the bed and stroked Spork’s oddly small head. His purrs sounded a little congested, like his motor was malfunctioning, but he was happy about it. This was a good way to spend the rest of the evening, Dorian decided. Spork wouldn’t ask him any awkward questions or expect him to hold Bull’s hand.

“Hey babe.” Bull, apparently, could be summoned by the sheer power of Dorian’s discomfort. “Tama was wondering if you wanted tea? Oh, hey, you found Spork!” Bull scritched Spork behind the ears for a moment before the cat whipped around and gave Bull’s hand a vicious bite. “Aww,” Bull cooed, “Who’s my pudgy warrior?” 

Dorian was going to die right here in Bull’s bedroom. And not even in a fun, acrobatic way. 

Spork nipped at Bull’s hand again, and then stretched his whole body out from from his front paws to his tail, before lying down in the exact same spot Dorian had found him in. the only difference-- he purred even louder.

“Is everything okay?” Bull asked Dorian after a minute. “I know my family can be a lot.”

“They certainly are that.”

“Do you-- do you want to leave? Maybe this really was a terrible idea.”

“No.” Dorian was better off if he pretended that wasn’t even an option. He was here now, and it was only a few days of cuddling with Bull and dodging questions about the future. “And I do want tea, if she’s not just making it for me.”

“But in a minute or two?” Bull suggested, scratching Spork under the chin.

“In a minute or two.” Dorian knew he sounded pathetically relieved. Determined to shake himself out of it, he said, “I noticed the Drog the Dragon stickers-- and poster. Is that from the very first season?”

Bull laughed. “Yeah. there were probably whole weeks were I didn’t watch anything else.”

“I don’t think all the episodes aired in Tevinter, but I remember enjoying what I did see. It was a good show.”

“It _is_ a good show,” Bull corrected. “They’re making a reboot. We should watch it.”

As if they were in any position to be making plans together months down the line. “We should.” He looked around the room-- its light green walls, the soft carpet, the trophies from childhood competitions. “I’d like to sleep on the left side of the bed, if it’s all the same to you.”

“As long as you don’t snore too loud.”

Dorian tossed his head. “I never snore.”

Spork sneezed again, which is probably why Bull’s expression turned so fond. “I was on the bus after that Nutcracker field trip. Varric filmed you.”

“Varric is a cad and an a turncoat, and I’m sure his phone is just as much of a liar as he is.”

“Tell that to the third grader who thought there was an airplane flying over us.”

“You’re awful,” Dorian groaned, dropping back onto the bed. “I can’t believe I’m dating you.”

Bull chuckled. “Me neither. Stitches says you’re way out of my league.”

“I like Stitches.” It was true, despite how overwhelming everyone had been. It was...nice, he thought, to have so many people happy to see you home.

“And… Rocky said he liked your mustache.”

“Now you’re just flattering me so that I’ll go back out there.”

Bull stood up then. “Guilty as charged.” Dorian kept his eyes on the ceiling, rather than risk glancing at Bull’s ass.

“Fine.” He held up one hand imperiously, and Bull hauled him to his feet as well.

Dorian looked up at Bull, something stuck in his throat.

Bull patted his shoulder and dropped his hand, then grabbed it again as he pulled him towards the door. “Okay. Let’s go lie our asses off.”


	10. Do You Hear What I Hear?

The tea was, in fact, quite good. Tama had squinted at him for a long moment, then brewed him some sort of pomegranate-berry concoction that was the perfect amount of tart and sweet on the tongue. Bull, Dorian noted with some surprise, was handed an orange spice blend in much the same way. 

“You are my least favorite,” Tama told Retha as she passed a steaming mug in their direction. 

“Yes ma’am, sorry,” Retha answered, taking a contrite sip. “I don’t like tea,” they told Dorian, grinning sheepishly as the steam fogged their glasses. “Tama makes pretty good coffee, though.” 

“I make the best coffee,” Tama corrected, and Rocky snorted into his cup. 

Dorian, wedged between Bull and Nadine, kept quiet as Stitches launched into a story about Tama’s first foray into coffee. “It was after my first semester in med school,” was all Dorian was able to hear over the comments that everyone immediately piled on. Storytelling seemed to be full-contact sport in this family. 

Tama dismissed all attempts to impugn her coffee-making abilities with a waved hand and a wry smile. When her children refused to let the topic go, she declared it was time for dinner.

Everyone obediently shuffled into the dining room, bringing their teacups along. Setting the table fell mostly to Bull and Retha, since they could reach all the shelves, and it wasn’t long before Dorian was sandwiched awkwardly between the two qunari around one corner of the battered dining table.

 

The meal was winding down, Nadine and Rhiannon starting to yawn, when Rocky stood up on his chair. “Hey guys, I’ve, uh, got an announcement.”

Dorian tried to recall a time when his own relatives had fallen respectfully silent and waited for him to finish a sentence. Rocky, to his credit, didn’t quell under the combined gaze of so many people. Navid, sitting next to him, looked a bit more nervous.

“Are you two finally going to admit you are dating?” Skinner asked. 

“No. I mean, also we’re not but--look, shut up I’m trying to do a thing here.” 

Skinner made a placating sort of “go on” gesture with her hands, though she looked smug at having flustered him. 

“Anyways, a few months ago, Navid and I applied for the minerals research residency at Kal-Sharok--”

“Underground,” Dalish muttered.

“Yes, underground. That’s where Kal-Sharok is.” Rocky cleared his throat and glared at her. “ _Anyways,_ we just heard back… and we got accepted.” 

The immediate response was joy. At least, Dorian assumed that was joyful screaming. 

After a moment, Dalish said, “but it’s _underground_.”

Nadine chimed in with “how long will you be gone?”

And Bull leaned across Dorian to ask quietly, “what about that legal thing?”

But all together, concerns seemed to be waved off. Stitches retrieved a pie from somewhere in the kitchen, Retha following with forks and plates, because Stitches forgot them. Dorian had never had maple pecan pie, but he couldn’t very well refuse the large slice--fully one fourth of the pie-- that Retha handed him.

Bull saw his look of mild terror. “We can share, babe, it’ll be cute.” 

Dorian envied his acting abilities. “Of course.” 

“Yeah, _babe_ ,” Dalish echoed. “Gross.”

“You have kids, D. Grow up.” Bull shoveled a large forkful of pie into his mouth.

“Never.” Dalish turned her attention to her own, much more reasonable, slice.

“Here,” Bull held another forkful up to Dorian’s face. “Try it. It’s really good.” 

With little other recourse, Dorian did. They ate the entire slice like that, Bull alternating between them, and Dorian playing along, helpless. It was astoundingly good, and at one point Bull wiped a bit of filling off Dorian’s mustache, and maybe this wasn’t such a terrible idea after all.

 

Bull was happy to see Spork still on his bed, when they got done with dinner and after-dinner charades. Well, he had come out briefly to sneak chicken off the floor, and again to trip Dalish mid airplane impression, but he had returned to Bull’s comforter, where he was currently engaged in licking himself and grunting contentedly.

Bull flopped on the bed and buried his face in Spork’s side, sighing into the cat’s fur. He was sort of slimy, but in a comforting way. 

“Am I interrupting something?” Dorian asked as he entered the room. 

“I missed my cat,” Bull said. “So sue me.”

“Let’s not even joke about that.” Dorian opened one of his suitcases and started pulling clothes out. “Do you have any extra hangers?”

Bull waved in the direction of his closet. “Somewhere in there, unless Tama’s moved them.”

He listened to Dorian moving around his room, petting Spork until Dorian went down the hall to the bathroom. He took off his clothes then, digging around in his suitcase for his sleep pants. He had them pulled on and was under the covers on the right hand side of the bed before dorian returned, his hair tousled and his eyes softer without his habitual khol lining them. 

“Close your eye,” Dorian commanded, just as imperious as ever. “I’m going to change now.”

Bull put a pillow over his face and gave Dorian a thumbs up. He heard Dorian chuckle.

Bull kept the pillow in place until Dorian climbed onto the bed and removed it himself. “You can look now,” he said softly. Bull did. He couldn’t help it.

“Are you wearing matching silk jammies?” he asked.

Dorian smacked his shoulder. “I’m wearing an elegant and cohesive sleeping ensemble.” It was a lovely shade of cream. 

“Oh,” Bull said. “Okay. It just looks a lot like matching silk jammies, I guess.”

“You’re imagining things.” Dorian slipped under the covers next to him. Spork grunted and shifted his position to accommodate him. Barely. “And you’re not wearing a shirt.”

“Who wears shirts to bed?” Bull turned to look at him. Dorian was wearing his best “offended by the world” face, but the effect was very different when he was nestled in the pillows of Bull’s childhood bed, eyes sleepy and mustache smooshed. Bull wanted to reach out and fix the curl that had fallen across his forehead, but stopped himself. They hadn’t actually vocalized the limit, but intentional touching in bed was probably a no-go.

“Civilized people who can feel the cold?” Dorian suggested. Then he yawned. “Whatever. I’m tired.”

Bull sat up to turn the lights off while Dorian wiggled around, trying to find the best position to sleep in. “I didn’t know it would be so--” Dorian finished his statement with another yawn and a vague hand gesture. “‘S nice.” 

“Yeah,” Bull said. “It really is.” If Dorian curled closer to him in his sleep, well, nobody else had to know.


	11. Just Like The Ones I Used To Know

Bull woke up to find Dorian curled tightly on his side, not exactly snoring. It was more of a tiny whistle, and Bull spent a few sleepy minutes watching his breath rustling his mustache.

He could hear Tama moving around in the kitchen, and the murmur of Stitches’ and Retha’s deeper voices in the main room. Dalish had probably already left for her morning run, but Skinner and Rocky rarely got up before Tama took matters into her own hands and woke them. The nieces, Bull knew from experience, would have been up for a while, been put to work preparing breakfast with Tama, given far too much sugar, and then sent upstairs to play.

He wondered what Dorian usually did in the mornings.

He moved Spork gently off his chest and sat up. Even with Dorian taking up half his bed, it felt just like always. There wasn’t really anything else like being at home. Spork grumbled at his disruption, then waddled over to sleep on Dorian, who stirred only long enough to snuggle the cat closer, instead. Bull took a picture with his phone; Josephine had been hounding him for yearbook material. 

Stitches texted him a series of coffee and tea emojis, because Stitches had an impossible sense of timing, and Bull resigned himself to getting out of bed.

He closed the door behind him quietly, leaving Spork and Dorian to sleep as long as the noise of the house would allow them to. He’d make sure there was enough coffee for Dorian, whenever he got up.

Tama got up to hug him when he came into the kitchen, just like she always did.

“Grim called, he and Krem should be here before noon,” she told him as he poured himself some coffee. The coffee maker still looked out of place on Tama’s counter.

“Krem’s driving?” Bull asked. “They’ll be here by nine-thirty.”

“I should think you would be more concerned that Grim called, rather than texted. I am told his new young lady is bearing up well against the motion sickness.” 

Retha giggled into their coffee.

“Do we have any deets on her yet? Is she into theatre stuff too?” Stitches weathered Tama’s disapproval of his casual language like a pro.

“Details from Grim?” asked Bull. “As if.”

“Lace says Adelaide is an actress. And... _Orlesian._ ” The group shuddered as one.

“Did you act like this when you found out I was from Tevinter?” Dorian shuffled in, still dressed in his silk jammies. He leaned on the counter next to Bull, accepting both a cup of coffee and a kiss on the cheek with only minor grumbling.

“Tevinter’s fine,” Stitches said. “Krem’s from Tevinter.”

“I thought Skinner was Orlesian?” Dorian was as sleep-muddled as Bull had ever seen him. It was a rare treat.

“Nevarran-Orlesian border, and definitely the Nevarran side,” Retha volunteered. “She cares a lot about that.”

Dorian nodded, brow furrowed. He was probably about to rush off to edit his flash cards. “I should get dressed.”

“If you want to,” Bull agreed. Even Tama was still wearing her fluffy robe. Dorian nodded and shuffled out again, taking his coffee with him.

“He’s cute,” Stitches told Bull.

“I am _not_!” Dorian shouted from the hallway.

Tama and Retha shared an amused look.

Gravel crunched loudly in the driveway. The girls, who’d been playing upstairs, thundered down into the main room. Skinner came down more slowly, hair still sticking up.

“Uncle Krem’s here!” Rhiannon shouted, herding everyone outside onto the porch. Bull heard her bang open the bathroom door, and Dorian’s startled hiss of “capitalism” before she dragged him, barefoot with makeup only mostly on, outside as well.

Lace got out of the car first, jumping immediately to hug the girls. It appeared she had ceded the passenger seat to Grim at some point during the twisted mountainous passes. Everyone else stumbled out, looking more than a bit worse for the wear, which confirmed Bull’s suspicion that Krem really had driven the whole way up. 

Dalish jogged down the driveway at that moment, bundled up against the cold but clearly recognizable. She tackled Krem, starting the avalanche of hugs that had buried Bull and Dorian the day before.

Adelaide looked almost as overwhelmed as Dorian had been, for a few moments. Then she began to talk. 

She didn’t really stop, even as they all went inside. Grim said nothing more than usual. He merely beamed at her. Bull, as a responsible older brother, had to give him a noogie. Grim barely even complained. He just raised his eyebrows and looked at Dorian, who was sitting in companionable silence with Tama at the kitchen table, reading different parts of the same newspaper. As Bull and Grim watched, they exchanged sections.

Bull shrugged. It was pretty cute “I guess we both got lucky.”

“Mmm,” Grim said.

Tama set down her paper to greet her sons, now that most of the hubbub had died down. She stole Grim out from under Bull’s arm, giving him a firm hug and a once-over to check college hadn’t damaged him. Grim made some sort of affirmational grunting noise, and Tama patted his cheek like he had actually answered a question. Bull loved his family, but he didn’t always understand them. 

She turned to Krem, who stood up subtly straighter. “Any trouble?” she asked him.

“Nothing Lace and I couldn’t handle.” 

Tama gave him a curt nod, and deposited a kiss on his forehead. “It is good to have you home safe, my son.” 

“Good to be home, Tama. Now what’s this I heard about Bull actually bringing someone home this year?” 

Dorian looked up. “That sounds like my cue.”

Krem surveyed him. Bull knew he was taking in every detail, from Dorian’s almost-perfect hair to the half-drunk coffee in front of him, as well as the Tevene accent. Most of all, the Tevene accent. “This is Dorian. He teaches fourth grade at my school,” Bull told him, putting a hand on Dorian’s shoulder.

Krem stuck out his hand to shake, only slightly rigid. “Krem.” That was about as good a sign as Bull figured they would be getting. 

“What is it that you do, Krem?” Dorian asked, “I don’t think Bull ever told me.”

“Government oversight,” Krem, Bull, and Lace said, all at once and too quickly. Behind them, Tama winced.


	12. Latke, I'm A Latke, And I'm Waiting For Hanukkah To Come

Dorian shook Krem’s hand, doing his best to suppress his curiosity at what was clearly some sort of inside joke. Maybe was a lawyer too, like Skinner and Dalish. Though he looked quite a bit more rugged than either of them. Lace, likewise, had a deep tan and biceps that rippled when she reached for Dorian’s hand. 

He found Grim much easier to greet, if just as difficult to hold a conversation with. He just watched Dorian with one slightly raised eyebrow and crossed arms. He smirked, when Dorian introduced himself as “Bull’s boyfriend.”

“Just because you thought it would never happen,” Bull said, coming up behind Dorian and sliding and arm around his waist, “doesn’t mean you get to make fun of us.”

Grim’s expression twiched almost imperceptibly. Bull laughed and punched him in the shoulder. “You would say that.” 

Dorian smiled and nodded as though he had understood that communication, and escaped over to Nadine and Rhiannon as soon as he could.

They were pulling on hats and mittens, but no coats, and told him they were “unloading Uncle Krem’s car for him.”

“So he can say hello to everyone,” Rhiannon explained, “and we’ll bring all the presents inside.”

“Uncle Krem brings the best presents,” Nadine said, trying the strings on her hat in a lopsided bow under her chin. “For my birthday? Last year? he brought me a real deepstalker skull.”

“A real one?” Dorian inquired politely.

She grinned. “It’s a _tube_.”

Rhiannon nodded. “It’s super Bee Ae.” She motioned for Dorian to lean down closer to her. “That means bad ass. It’s a bad word,” she whispered. “Don’t call things bad. Or stupid. It’s not nice.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dorian whispered back.

“Presents!” Nadine yelled, and threw the door open.

Dorian followed them outside, where he immediately wished he’d thought to put on his own gloves, and Lace joined them after mere moments.

“Remember girls,” she said, jogging to catch up with them as they raced across the driveway. “Not all of our bags are presents. Leave the black ones alone and just bring the ones with our names on them.”

Dorian opened the trunk and the girls clambered in, Nadine spouting facts about deepstalker diets and habitats. “Leave the black ones?” he confirmed. 

“Rifles aren’t exactly child friendly,” Lace murmured to him, taking one of the bags Rhiannon shoved at her. Bull had mentioned her family was from the Fereldan Hinterlands, Dorian remembered. She must be one of those Fereldans who hunted wild rams and whatnot.

She seemed nice, was Dorian’s overall impression, and Bull seemed happy when Dorian told him that. 

 

For most of the evening, Dorian kept a respectful distance from Krem, and the younger man seemed to prefer it that way. The distance lasted right until dinner preparation began and Krem brought out the potatoes. 

“Do you need help?” Dalish had been somewhat sullenly put to work peeling and shredding carrots and onions, Krem was most of the way through scrubbing the first of a couple ten pound bags of potatoes, and Dorian might have been doing something that, on a lesser, more poorly-intentioned person, could been considered hovering. 

Krem made a small scoffing noise in the back of his throat. “Are you actually _volunteering_ to grate like a hundred potatoes?” 

Doing his best to look nonchalant, Dorian shrugged. “It’s not that I don’t think you could handle it on your own, it just looked like such fun.” He tried not to look too much like he meant it. 

“All right, then.” The look Krem gave him was guarded, appraising, but it came with a box grater and an enormous bowl, so Dorian set to work. 

And while he worked, he weathered Krem’s leading questions and Dalish’s teasing.

“So the Chief is your boss, then?” was Krem’s opening salvo, and he didn’t really let up.

“Technically, the school board is, or the Fereldan department of education, since it’s a public school--”

“But you teach fourth grade, right? That’s what he taught before he got promoted, or whatever. Is that ever weird for you two?”

“Is it weird for you and Lace to work together?” Dorian shot back, eyes on his potato. Bull hadn’t told him what Krem did, but he had mentioned he met his girlfriend through work. 

Krem shrugged. “At first, yeah. But once she kicked my ass a few times I got over myself.”

“Well, there you go,” Dorian answered primly. 

Krem chuckled. “You keep him in line, then?” 

“In a manner of speaking.” Dorian glanced towards the couches, where Nadine was showing her dolls and deepstalker skull to Bull and Adelaide. He tried to keep the fondness from showing on his face for a moment, before remembering that he was supposed to be looking at Bull like that here.

Krem watched the interplay carefully, apparently unconcerned about his own fingers as he deftly cut eyes from the potatoes. “So this thing here, it’s sort of new,” he guessed. 

“Not so new, but... new enough, I suppose.” Dorian was practically telling the truth.

Krem finished eyeing the last of his potatoes with significantly more efficiency than Dorian was demonstrating in shredding them, and pulled a second grater from a cabinet. Dalish cursed at the onion she was slicing, and Dorian jumped. He turned his full attention back to the potatoes and the very sharp metal implement he was holding.

“So, who asked who out?” Krem asked. “Was it a late night at the bake sale? A shared glance over stapler reimbursement paperwork? Did you get locked in a janitor’s closet together for some reason?”

Dorian desperately tried to remember the story that he and Bull had agreed on. It didn’t work. “Well, I always sort of had… I noticed him right away,” he stammered, stalling for time.

Dalish snorted. “Not hard to do that.” She made an upward gesture with her knife, most likely trying to convey _horns_.

“He was part of the panel that interviewed me, since I was taking his place, and he just struck me as-- as a very intelligent individual.”

“With great cleavage?” Krem added. “I’ve seen his sweater vests. The man’s obscene.”

“I do enjoy his sweater vests.” Dorian could feel himself heating all the way to his ears. “But it’s more that… he’s so good with children, he really listens to them, in a way that most adults don’t. He treats them like real people, not problems to be controlled. I wish I’d had a teacher like him when I was young.”

“Kinky,” Dalish commented.

“Not like--ugh, never mind.” Dorian was tempted to press a cold, freshly rinsed potato to his forehead.

“No, I mean, I get it.” Krem was very determinedly not making eye contact with Dorian now. “It would have been nice, to have someone looking out for you. Lace uh, she looks out for me now, too.” He turned away quickly to wash... something.

“Hostage situations are different than elementary schools, Krem Puff,” said Dalish.

‘Are they really?” Krem asked philosophically.

“Hostage situations?” Dorian demanded.

“Uh, just like, work stuff, meetings, you know.” Krem shot Dalish a glare. “Our boss is really, um, rigid. About-- timetables.”

“You should shut up before your boss hears that,” Dalish muttered, her eyes suddenly focused on a carrot.

“Before who hears what?” Tama materialized in the doorway, Fluffy robe traded in for a dark, tunic-style shirt and loose-fitting pants.

“Just talking about work, Tama.” Krem kissed her on the cheek as she came over to survey the potatoes. “Dorian was telling us what a good teacher Bull is.”

“Yes,” Tama said. “I am told it is due to his ability to adhere to a rigid timetable. And meet his coworkers at scheduled locations and times, so as not to cause confusion or worry.” 

“Er, right. Um. Yes. That’s probably why.” Krem was blushing faintly. Dorian got the feeling something was going over his head, here. 

Tama continued blandly, “Rhiannon is wondering when dinner will be ready. I will give her some crackers if you think it will be longer than an hour.”

“Please,” said Dalish. “And give her cheese too.” She turned to Dorian. “My daughter is a hangry monster. She gets it from Skinner....Actually, Tama, will you make sure Skinner eats some crackers too?” 

“Of course.” Tama moved around them, assembling a large tray of snacks, including carrot slices neatly pilfered from Dalish’s cutting board, and small tomatoes Dorian didn’t even see her cut. She left them alone in the kitchen again.

Dalish smirked at Dorian. “So how’s the sex?”

Dorian suddenly understood why Mae laughed when he’d mentioned wanting a sister. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is from [ this masterpiece of American Jewish culture](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhFiszfdt18)


	13. Only To Behold

Dalish slid the last latke from the pan onto baking sheet and Dorian nearly collapsed to the floor in relief. Krem put the pan next to the others in the oven, which was still warm from cooking the brisket. Dorian had never made latkes for this many people, and he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to do it again.

Tama appeared at Krem’s elbow just as he draped a dish towel over his face. “You must all get changed.” 

Krem and Dalish groaned loudly. Dorian looked to Tama, hoping she would explain, but she had already swept off to hurry the nieces into nicer clothing. 

“Pictures,” Krem extended the word into four syllables and a lifetime of being put-upon. 

“...Ah. Is there a particular dress code I should adhere to?”

“Just wear a suit or a dress or something,” Dalish was grumbling as she attempted to scrub flour and potato starch off her arms, but Dorian took whatever help he could get at this point. 

Bull was in his room-- or was it their room?-- when Dorian got there, freshly showered and smelling faintly floral.

“You didn’t mention photographic evidence,” Dorian accused, pulling his smaller suitcase open and shaking out the one suit jacket he’d brought in case someone had wanted to go to church or temple or something.

“Would this be a good time to tell you I already have a picture of Spork sleeping on you saved to my phone?” Bull asked. 

Dorian cringed, but soldiered on. “That’s different. Spork is perfect and deserves to have paparazzi. This is photos of me lying to your family about--” he sighed. 

Bull looked up from the two identical neckties he was examining, his expression shifting rapidly from amused to concerned. “Hey, they like you. I like you. The rest of it doesn’t matter.” 

“But it does matter,” Dorian pulled out his own tie as he spoke, laying it on his suitcase. His hands were shaking too badly to knot it right now. “Your Tama will keep these pictures. And maybe she’ll look back at them and remember the stranger who came into her home for no reason and lied to her and her whole family. These pictures-- they’ll stay in your family photo album, or get sent out to people who know you or--” 

Bull caught Dorian’s hands in his own. “Dorian. Look at me.” 

God help him, Dorian did. It was unfair, how kind and understanding Bull could look when Dorian himself was falling apart. 

“What’s this about, Dorian?” 

Dorian closed his eyes and sat on the bed. He could feel Bull follow, sitting next to him without ever letting go of his hands. 

“It’s--” Dorian let out a slow breath. “There are... some things I haven’t told you, that I probably should.” When he said it like that, it sounded more like he was about to confess to being a wanted criminal in three countries, not to having increasingly overwhelming feelings for his fake boyfriend.

Not that he was actually going to be saying that anytime soon. And he definitely wouldn’t be saying that he wished he could be part of these family photos in earnest. It was painful, in a physical way, how much he wished that.

Bull waited, patient. When Dorian didn’t open his eyes, or say anything more, Bull said quietly, “what if you let me fix your tie, and we go out and take pictures, and you tell me later tonight? I promise there’s nothing you could say that would change my mind about wanting to take Hanukkah photos with you.” 

He sounded so calm, so sure, that, despite knowing better, Dorian allowed himself to believe him. He nodded quickly, opening his eyes in time to see Bull smile at him. 

“You can only tie my tie if it’s an Almadrius knot,” Dorian commanded, mostly to stop the situation from getting any more unbearably intimate. 

“Sure,” Bull said, completely nonchalant. “I always liked that one better than the boring old Therin knot. Way too casual.”

That was also unbearable, in a new way.

“You always look really good in photos,” Bull continued, reaching over to grab Dorian’s tie. “There’s this shot of everyone from the faculty talent show last year, when we were taking our bows, and you were wearing some sort of ancient Tevinter dress that should have looked like a bathrobe, but you looked-- regal, or some shit like that.”

“That’s not a dress,” Dorian muttered. “It’s traditional formal wear from before pants were fashionable.”

“So... it was a one piece item of clothing with a skirt.” 

“There were _hose_ underneath.” 

Bull considered that silently, and looped the tie around Dorian’s neck, adjusting the collar of his shirt. Dorian took great care not to shudder when Bull’s fingers brushed against the skin of his throat.

“Of course I’ll look good in the pictures,” he said quietly. “It’s just the… familyness of it all.”

“Great word choice,” Bull commented.

“Shut up.” Dorian focused on keeping his breathing even while Bull looped the silk tie into a complicated pattern. “I mean that the only pictures I have of myself with my parents are awful portraits where we took turns sitting in an armchair and then standing behind the chair with our hand on one person’s shoulder looking pensive and--” 

“This isn’t your parents, Dorian. I promise you, it’s gonna be okay.” Bull was still looking him in the eye. 

Dorian took a deep breath and nodded to himself. It wasn’t very likely that he’d see any of the Chargers again, anyway. He ignored how that feeling sat in his gut.

Bull’s hands lingered on the fabric as he worked. Dorian supposed if he were doing a knot that complicated, he’d need to take his time, too, and he was pathetically grateful for the opportunity to gather his faculties. 

“Bull,” Dorian asked, because he hated himself, “have you ever brought any real partners home to meet your family?”

“Uh, not... not as such, no.” Bull’s eye flicked down to focus on the finishing touches of the tie. “I just... hadn’t met the right person yet, I guess.” 

“Will they be devastated, then, if I don’t come back?”

Bull chuckled softly. “Isn’t everyone devastated when you leave them?” He smoothed the tie down Dorian’s chest.

Dorian glanced down at his hand, and then away. 

Bull lifted his fingers slowly from Dorian’s tie. “I should, uh. Do you think I should wear the green tie? So we match? or the pink one?”

“I must confess I like the idea of matching with you.” 

Bull grinned. “Green it is, then.” He stepped away to work on his own knot.

Dorian did his hair in the mirror on Bull’s dresser, styling it slightly upwards. He had to, if he didn’t want to look absurd and diminutive next to Bull. Would Tama expect a couple’s picture, he wondered, with multiple takes and angles? Or was this a one and done affair? He finally gave in and asked.

“I should warn you,” Bull said, “Tama likes candids. She has this old polaroid camera that she uses… I tried to buy her a nice digital one for eid a few years back, but no dice.”

“Candids,” Dorian repeated faintly. “Oh joy.”

“What’s the matter, big guy? Only most of your angles are flattering?” He leaned over to check Dorian’s tie one more time.

“Just wondering how she’s going to get both our heads into the same frame without a forklift or crane of some kind." 

Bull laughed, opening the bedroom door almost directly into Grim, who was texting and leaning casually against the wall.

Adelaide came out of the bathroom then, hair in an impressive updo that looked like it should have taken hours, and hustled them all back into the main room.

The Chargers, as a family, owned about eight menorahs. They ranged from kindergarten art project clay lumps to graceful sterling silver trees. When Tama lined her children up next to their menorahs, each seemed perfectly suited to its owner.

Dorian didn’t find Bull’s glitzy dinosaur-shaped hannukia charming in the least.

Nadine and Rhiannon each lit their own menorah, and everyone sang the blessing. Dorian stumbled a little, used to a different rhythm.

There was approximately one per couple after that. The younger siblings went first, Dalish took Skinner’s hand, guiding it over to the shamash. They lifted it together, bringing it to the wick of the first candle. Dalish deposited a kiss behind Skinner’s ear as the candle caught alight. Krem and Lace did the same, Lace giggling at whatever Krem whispered to her. By the time it was Bull and Dorian’s turn, they had little choice. 

“Nothing to it, right?” Bull’s voice was directly in Dorian’s ear, his body a warm bulwark at his back.

Dorian didn’t reply, his throat suddenly stuck. He put all his energy into trying to remember this, the way Bull’s fingers felt over his own as they lit the candles and set their menorah on the windowsill, glowing into the falling night.


	14. As Long As We Have Hands To Clasp

Bull woke up practically anticipating Dorian having migrated onto him in the night. When he rolled over and found Dorian a perfectly respectable distance away, one hand clutching the edge of Bull’s comforter, he felt... surprised. Bull had assumed Dorian always cuddled in his sleep. It was sort of weird to find out there were exceptions. 

He got up quietly, like the day day before, and closed the door behind him. He took a last look at Dorian, just to make sure he was still asleep, before it closed. He’d been barely half-awake when he’d gone into the kitchen in the morning, maybe Bull should just bring him his first cup of coffee now, so he could prepare himself in private.

Dalish was in the kitchen when he got there, talking to Adelaide. “It’s too cold to run this morning,” she told Bull. “I’m sad about it.”

“I don’t understand you,” he told her. His bum knee made jogging awful, but even without that excuse, he didn’t understand why she ran _every_ day.

Adelaide munched thoughtfully on a leftover latke. “We could do partner yoga,” she told Dalish. “We’re about the same height. I could show you some things like the basic lifts we do.”

“Sounds dangerous,” Dalish said. “I’m in.”

“What sort of lifts?” Bull asked, pouring two cups of coffee. “I thought you were an actor, are you a dancer too?”

She laughed. “No, I have basically no rhythm. I do harlequin stunts at ren faires over the summer, and I’m in this acrobatics troupe at school.”

“Are harlequins like mimes?” Bull asked.

“I mean…” Adelaide frowned. “Sort of? Not really. I do that mostly, but I also fill for the contortionists, fire eaters and sword swallowers when they need it, if that gives you an idea? Of like, the genre of performance. I do Shakespeare and postmodern theater during the year, and during the summer, I’m basically an entire circus in a historically accurate hand-tooled leather bustier.”

“Oh, _really_?” Said Dalish. “Tell me more.”

Bull left them to it, and took the coffee back to his room.

Dorian was awake, or somewhere on the way to being awake, when Bull pushed the door open. He was sitting up, at least, and he turned blearily in the direction of caffeine.

“I brought you coffee,” Bull said, putting one cup on the nightstand next to him. “Cream, no sugar.”

“You fucking angel,” Dorian murmured, voice scratchy but fervent. “I could kiss you.”

Bull laughed and took a sip of his own coffee. He’d made the right choice.

 

In the three hours that it took for everyone to wake up and eat breakfast, the weather warmed up just a little. By noon, it was almost above freezing, and Rhiannon herded everyone outside to play.

She marshalled them through an incredibly structured game of tag before Skinner tripped over a root and fell on her face. It was her own fault, really, thinking that she could corner Lace by the tree house.

That broke up the game a little, and Dorian, Adelaide and Grim took the girls on a walk so they wouldn’t see their mother cursing at Stitches while he wiped antiseptic on her face.

Bull and Rocky went inside to make lunch before they got back. Well, they got cold cuts and sandwich fixings out of the fridge and put them on the dining room table so everyone could make their own lunch. That was as much as anyone trusted the two of them to do without supervision.

Bull was answering emails when Nadine and Rhiannon came thundering back into the house, demanding food and hot cocoa. He stayed out of their way while they had a serious debate over whether folding a slice of bread in half made your sandwich a hot dog or just a small sandwich, and didn’t look up until Dorian sat next to him and handed him a plate.

“I got you turkey,” he said. “And Stitches coached me on the correct amount of mustard to use. I feel like I emptied the entire bottle.”

“Then you might just have used enough,” Bull said happily. “Thank you.”

“It was nothing.” Dorian sounded embarrassed. “He seemed disappointed I didn’t already know about all of your distressing dietary habits.”

“That’s not your fault,” Bull told him. “I’ve specifically avoided eating sandwiches around you because I knew this is how you’d react.”

Dorian laughed, finally seeming to relax, and Bull relaxed as well. It wasn’t that he felt like he should keep an eye on Dorian, but it was his responsibility to make sure that Dorian was happy and comfortable.

“So,” Dorian said after a minute. “Adelaide told me she sometimes moonlights as a sword swallower.”

After lunch, everyone slowly wandered back into the living room. It felt like old times. Rocky and Grim playing an intensely competitive board game while Dalish took notes on an article she was reading about endangered fish, and Dorian read with the nieces in the corner. The room was a lot fuller than it had been in high school, of course, but Bull loved it. Krem had been his first sibling, and Bull had known even then that he just wanted his family to keep growing.

He watched Dorian help Nadine turn the pages of _The Paper Bag Princess,_ waiting patiently as she stumbled through the tougher words and providing appropriately dragony sound effects when asked. The thought struck him, unbidden, that this was a moment he was going to remember for a very long time. 

Krem put a quiet hand on Bull’s shoulder, watching him watch Dorian. “He’s real sweet with them. Sweet in general, even when he thinks we aren’t watching.”

Bull nodded, and his chest ached. 

“He’s going to be a great father one day. Whenever you two are ready for that.” 

Bull couldn’t help the soft sort of punched-out noise he made then, a lot of things he really should have noticed before coming together quickly. 

“Bull?” Krem frowned. Dorian was still absorbed with Nadine, too far away to hear. 

“No, I just-- you’re right, is all. He’d be--he’d be good at that.” 

Krem laughed. “You’re a tremendous sap, you know that?” 

“I do. Hey, uh, Krem, can I catch you later? I’ve got to go and...you know.” Bull waved a hand in lieu of coming up with a real excuse, then made his escape. 

 

Tama was outside, doing something that could have ostensibly been weeding the garden, had it not been the middle of winter. To Bull’s eye it looked more like prowling the perimeter of the lawn with a plausibly deniable garden trowel.

“You know, I think we’re pretty safe from any sort of super-ninja attack right in the middle of the holidays,” Bull said. 

“And we remain so because I am vigilant.” Tama stopped to poke at some dirt next to a rose bush, her eyes scanning the horizon. “About what did you wish to speak to me?”

“Hey now, I could just be enjoying the garden. It’s got some real nice... branches this time of year.” He poked at a tightly furled ball of hibernating shrubbery, snow falling off onto his hand. He’d forgotten gloves, he realized belatedly. 

Tama huffed. “Of course. You have always been a great appreciator of sparseness. I will leave you to your reflections.” She had twitched the snow off of the rocks surrounding one flower bed, and was ambling over to another before Bull cracked. 

“So I did sort of a dumb thing,” he admitted. 

“Did you upset your young man?” Tama sat on the cleared edge of the flower bed, patting the spot next to her. 

“Not exactly. But I uh, might. Be going to, that is. Soon.” He sat down, letting Tama wrap her gloved hands firmly around his own, leaning his head on her shoulder like he had when he was young. 

Tama didn’t ask why, just waited for him to keep talking, rubbing the warmth back into his fingers. 

“I really like him,” Bull said quietly. “More than--more than I thought I could.” More than anyone he could remember actually dating before. “I realized, today, that--” he swallowed, couldn’t think of a way to finish that thought. “It sort of scares me.” 

Tama kept one hand over his, brought the other up to rub her thumb gently at the base of his horns, the same slow movement she’d used when he’d woken her with nightmares as a child. Bull closed his eye, telling himself it was the cold that made it sting. “Are you afraid because you fear he does not deserve your love, or are you afraid because you fear you do not deserve his?”

“The second one,” Bull admitted into her shoulder. He had long since understood that Dorian was worth every second he spent on him, but until now, Bull just hadn’t really thought through what that meant.

“Then, Ashkaari, that is something you must let Dorian worry about. All there is for you is to care for him as best you can.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dec. 15th: Hi guys, life got in the way in a pretty serious way today, and we have not been able to finish our chapter for the 15th just yet. We should be back to your regularly scheduled Spork and Pining tomorrow. Thank you all for your patience!


	15. From Now On, Our Troubles Will Be Miles Away

Dorian, all things considered, was having a pretty great morning. He woke up curled into Bull, which he might have felt guilty about, but guilt was definitely the sort of thing he’d prefer to make future Dorian deal with, and present Dorian was warm and content. He also woke up with a cat, which was always a plus; Spork snored like a poorly maintained buzzsaw, and didn’t seem to stop no matter what position Dorian prodded him into. It was a comforting sound, Dorian thought. 

He was debating how best to extricate himself for coffee without waking either of his large gray bedmates when Spork farted himself awake. He gazed reproachfully at Dorian as if to emphasize as much as possible how completely Dorian’s fault the situation was, then sauntered over to step on Bull’s face. 

“Asshole,” Bull muttered, patting Spork affectionately. 

Spork headbutted his cheek.

Dorian giggled, a thoroughly undignified sound, and Bull’s head turned at the noise. 

“I didn’t even know you could do that,” he said. 

Dorian flushed, but answered “of course I can. You just aren’t as adorable as Spork.” 

Spork chose that moment to make a gagging noise before settling down to lick himself. 

Bull had the grace not to say anything contrary, merely twitched an eyebrow at the cat. “Good to know who the competition is.” 

Dorian stared at the ceiling in order to give Spork privacy. “Indeed. I’ll miss him most of all when all this is over and you break my heart.” 

The silence lasted a few breaths longer than it ought. “You could still visit if you want. Nadine and Rhiannon like you. And Krem hasn’t got plans with Skinner to assassinate you yet, which from them is practically a benediction.”

“No plans that you know of,” Dorian said. “And honestly, I’m a little concerned by how real those plans might actually be. At least where Krem is concerned. Nobody will tell me what ‘government oversight’ actually means.” There. It was much easier to address Krem’s... profession than the rest of it. 

“I mean... it means, uh... he. Oversees? Governments? And uh, does stuff? That governments need doing?” 

“You don’t know either,” Dorian accused.

“No, I know, it’s just...” Bull rolled over, muffling the end of his sentence in Dorian’s shoulder. 

“Sorry, couldn’t hear that,” Dorian teased, trying not to hyperventilate at the warmth of Bull’s mouth, breath hot even through the fabric of his pajamas. 

“It’s classified,” Bull mumbled, not taking his face from Dorian’s shoulder.

It was better for everyone, Dorian decided, if he didn’t ask whether or not Bull really meant that.

“I don’t want to get up,” Bull turned his head just enough that his face was no longer mashed into Dorian’s collarbone. 

“There’s coffee,” Dorian said, though he didn’t feel much like moving either. It was warm under the blankets.

“Not even for coffee.” 

Future Dorian was going to be _furious_ with him. Dorian put an arm across Bull’s chest and pulled himself a little closer anyways. 

“What if we just stayed here,” Bull muttered. “What if we never got up and just stayed here for the rest of time?”

“We’d miss the Air and Space Museum,” said Dorian.

“They’ve got virtual tours,” Bull countered. “And my phone’s right there.”

“I suppose it’s settled, then.” 

Spork clambered onto Bull’s abandoned pillow, cutting off any retreat. They were definitely cuddling now. There simply wasn’t a way around it. Dorian wondered if Bull was simply a tactile person or if this might, possibly, be cause for hope. 

He was far too sleep-muddled to either tell the difference or make himself care. He felt warm, and safe, and the rhythms of Bull’s breathing and Spork’s gentle wheezing were comforting.

He might have dozed off a little. 

“Hey,” Bull said slowly, his voice drowsy and soft around the edges.

“Mmm?” Dorian didn’t much feel like opening his eyes just then.

“I just uh, I wanted to say thanks, for doing this, for me. I know this isn’t what you thought your holiday break would look like.”

Dorian nodded, and rubbed Bull’s arm with his thumb instead of going to the effort of saying words.

“And I-- I wanted to mention something. But I don’t wanna make things weird.” 

Dorian tensed under him. Of course Bull had noticed. Dorian would be an idiot to think he hadn’t realized something was amiss. He tried to breathe normally. “What is it?”

That was when Rhiannon and Nadine burst in.


	16. If Only In My Dreams

“To what do we owe the pleasure?” Dorian asked Rhiannon when he had recovered sufficiently from the shock of their entrance. 

“It’s cookie day,” she announced gleefully, “Uncle Grim sent us to come get you.” 

“Cookie day?” Dorian repeated, nonplussed. 

Beside him, Bull let out a heartfelt groan. “Once a year, Tama tries to murder us all so she won’t have to buy Christmas presents.” 

Nadine frowned very sadly at Bull’s lack of holiday spirit. “Cookie day is fun, Uncle Tibby. You get to do lots of decorating and Tama lets you lick the spoons.”

“ _You_ get to decorate,” Bull corrected, “ _I_ get to work the f--capitalist spritz press.” 

“What’s capitalist, Uncle Tibby?” asked Nadine.

“What isn’t, these days,” Dorian muttered.

“A kind of money,” Rhiannon told her sister with all the superior wisdom of her three additional years. “And Ma says it’s a bad fucking word.”

Dorian stared at Bull reproachfully, but he just spread his hands in a gesture of defeat. “Hey, you heard her. That’s what Skinner says.”

He glared a minute longer for good measure, then turned back to Nadine and Rhiannon. “All right girls, we’ll be out in a minute. Can you close the door when you leave?”

“Why?” Nadine asked. “Are you naked?”

“No!” Dorian yelped. 

“Dorian’s got really nice jammies,” Bull told them. “But he’s shy.”

“I have pajamas with deepstalkers on them,” Nadine began, even as her sister shepherded her out the door. 

Dorian sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Children are very different when you can’t send them home at the end of the day.”

“Eh, I like them,” Bull said mildly.

“I never said I didn’t,” Dorian flushed, pushing himself out of bed and pulling out something he wouldn’t mind getting flour on. “Am I right in guessing that Cookie Day is, well, an entire day? Of baking cookies?”

“It’s easier if you don’t dwell on it. Just let the suffering wash over you like the tide.” Despite his words, Bull was gamely navigating a T-shirt on to accompany his sleep pants. “I’ll make sure the tide includes coffee.”

“What’s a spritz press?” Dorian asked.

“Tendonitis in a can. Don’t worry about it. You’re new, so Tama will probably give you one of the cushy jobs until your place in the family is legally binding. She’s sneaky like that.” 

“Positively devious,” Dorian agreed. “Are you sure you’re just not a huge pushover?”

Bull had the neck of a shirt that read “National Nug Day Marathon” caught on one horn. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, but you also haven’t seen the full force of Tama’s disappointed face.” 

Dorian considered that thought, and shuddered. “Coffee first,” he announced, leaving to fix his makeup. 

They were the last ones into the kitchen. Even Spork had beaten them, wandering through the floor space with the clear intent of being underfoot as much as possible. Lace was stacking a shipping pallet’s worth of egg cartons on the counter. Stitches was zesting lemons, oranges, limes, and what appeared to be a grapefruit into individually sorted bowls, Grim was measuring flour into every available bowl and drinking glass in the house, two cups at a time. 

At one end of the long dining table, Dalish was bitterly sifting powdered sugar-- not even Skinner’s murmured comment about her very strong hands made her smile. There were several tins of cocoa powder at her elbow, clearly waiting for the same treatment.

Outside the kitchen, Rocky was making pancakes on an electric griddle at a station he’d set up on the furthest end of the dining table. An absolutely capitalist amount of pancakes were already stacked on plates beside him. 

Mildly intimidated by the military operation in the kitchen, but mostly compelled by the food and steaming coffee pot, Dorian sauntered over to join him. “Our quartermaster, I see.”

“I’m just not allowed five feet from Tama’s stand mixer anymore,” Rocky deflected. “And Krem’s about to put the double boilers on the stove.”

Tama bustled over and gave Dorian an apron. It was brand new, still starchy and brightly dyed. Glittery dreidels decorated the neckline, which would have been embarrassing if Rocky weren’t wearing a bright red apron patterned with flying nugs. At least Dorian’s apron was a tasteful dark blue.

Everyone had their own apron, Dorian saw. They varied in the amount of ruffles, the wear and tear at the seams, and the cheerful holiday designs, but there was an apron for every person in the room, even Nadine and Rhiannon. Even, apparently, him.

“Thank you,” he managed to say before she headed back to the stove, where Krem was sliding chocolate into one of four double boilers.

Once Dorian and Bull were fed and caffeinated, Cookie Day began.

There were a lot of moving parts. Tama rattled off a lengthy list of flavors and varieties they were making, and assigned tasks without ever repeating her instructions.It was, apparently, all the instruction any of the others needed. Well, any of the Chargers. Navid looked almost as lost as Dorian felt, but a lot more cool about it, and Adelaide wavered just long enough for Tama to squint at her reprovingly before grabbing both of them and ordering them to fetch the vanilla from the shed. Navid looked relieved at the dismissal and towed Adelaide from the room before she could ask any questions. 

“Bring me one third of what is there,” Tama called after them, and turned to Dorian. “You will assist me with the peanut butter cookies.”

He was sent to gather two jars of peanut butter, four jars of tahini, and a bag of sesame seeds from the pantry. He did not argue.

Tama nodded at him in approval when he came back to the kitchen, and even that little bit of recognition made him flush. “I will make the tahini and you will make the peanut butter,” she told him.

“I’ve… never made those before,” Dorian admitted quietly. Or any cookies that hadn’t come from a box, but one weakness at a time.

“Then you will learn. The recipes we will be following are similar, and I will instruct you.”

Dorian glanced around the kitchen at everyone else, who were all focused on their own tasks and didn’t need someone to hold their hand through the simplest steps.

“First, you will measure the peanut butter, brown and white sugar, and butter into this bowl.” She looked at him and waited for compliance.

Dorian glanced at Bull, who was loading the spritz press with dough cursing quietly, not paying attention to him at all. Krem was focused on the double boilers, Grim was measuring sugar into a bowl of his own. Dorian swallowed his pride and followed Tama’s instructions. 

She had him mix everything by hand, which was clearly torture. He got a small break when Adelaide and Navid came back with the vanilla extract-- gallons of it. Adelaide had filled Nadine’s radio flyer wagon with bottles, and Navid was struggling to balance four in his arms.

Tama sent them to Rocky, who turned off the pancake griddle and unfolded a small plastic tarp. Dorian watched with interest as he produced a funnel and several decorative bottles.

“We also make vanilla extract today. It is a good gift, and important for cooking,” Tama explained, returning to Dorian with a small cup of extract and a measuring spoon. “He will place new beans in the spirits under the table for next year when he is done pouring.”

“Spirits?” Dorian asked.

Tama pointed to approximately a dozen bottles of bourbon and vodka sitting under the dining table. Rocky opened one of them as they watched.

“Ah. And you said that was a _third_ of what you have?”

“It is an essential ingredient in many things. Rocky fills the bottles while we bake, because the extract is heavy and very flammable, so it must stay away from the oven. Much like him.”

“Of course,” Dorian agreed.

“Now we will add the flour.”

Grim’s first task made sense now. With two cups of flour in each glass, it was simple to stir it into the dough in equal increments. It was also easy to know how much he’d added, when he inevitably got distracted and lost count. And there were plenty of things to distract him.

Bull’s battle with the spritz press continued, and Retha had operated the stand mixer for everyone who wasn’t Dorian and moved on to whipping the meringue. They were a surgeon, after all, and could be trusted with technical equipment and precise tasks.

Dalish had a far more liquid batter than Dorian’s dough, which would become black and white cookies. Stitches was finishing his gingerbread, and Grim’s sugar cookie dough wasn’t far behind. Skinner was supervising Nadine and Rhiannon as they lay out pastry sheets, rugelach filling in a bowl on the table.

It was a bit chaotic, everyone moving around the kitchen, talking and shouting and banging spoons on bowls. But it was a controlled chaos, creative and focused in a way Dorian rarely saw outside of elementary school art classes. Rarely inside them, either, but Merrill had her talents.

He felt a part of it as well, which was new and strange. As much as his arms ached, he wished he could come back and do it all again next year, and the year after that.

Krem took a double boiler off the stove and started scooping a mixture of marshmallow and cornflakes onto sheets of wax paper. That’s what Dorian assumed went into the concoction at least, because he’d seen both of those things earlier. At some point since then, though, they had turned bright green.

Dorian watched Krem and Lace manipulate the green piles into circles, decorating them with red candies to make them look like little wreaths. He remembered what Bull had said about cushy jobs, and wished he’d been able to do that instead of spend an eternity stirring flour and peanut butter together by hand.

It must have been easy, because Lace got bored and threw a candy at Bull, bouncing it off the top of his head with pinpoint accuracy.

Bull dropped the spritz press and spun around. He looked at Krem first, who was innocently spooning cornflakes, apparently oblivious.

When Krem didn’t react to his glaring, Bull took a tiny piece of spritz dough and threw it at his back.

The dough landed in Krem’s hair, and he jerked his head up. “Hey!”

Bull made no move to appear innocent, just locked eyes with Krem, another piece of dough in his hand.

Tama looked up from Dorian’s cookie dough and saw that order had been disrupted. In a shocking lack of self preservation, neither Bull or Krem saw her move, and exchanged one more volley.

“Had I given birth to you, perhaps you would not have inherited such violent tendencies.” Tama whacked the back of Krem’s head with her spoon as she spoke, moving across the kitchen to do the same to Bull. 

“Unlikely,” Krem grumbled, rubbing the spot before returning to shaping little cornflake wreaths. Lace continued placing the red candies, her face impressively innocent considering she was the one who actually started it. 

“Did you always want to adopt?” Dorian asked, to cover the moment. 

There were a few poorly concealed snorts at the question, and even Tama let out a low chuckle. “Not at all,” she said. “Ashkaari is the one who adopted these ingrates. I merely signed the paperwork.”

“With Kadan gone, we had a big house to fill,” was Bull’s only defense. “And then we needed to make the house bigger to fit everyone, but that’s beside the point.”

Navid asked the question on Dorian’s tongue. “Who’s Kadan?”

“My birth mother,” Bull answered easily. “This was her house first, and she left it to Tama when she passed.”

“I did not wish to uproot you further than you already had been.” Tama always spoke with surety, but her tone now was fierce. “Kadan always wanted children more than I. Even so, I would never have left you alone.”

Bull put down the spritz press and went to hug her. “I know, Tama.”

Tama hugged him as well, her floury thumb leaving a smear where she petted at the base of his horns. “In any case,” she continued, gathering her composure, “this house has excellent sight lines from the attic. It was the correct tactical choice.” 

Everyone but Lace groaned. 

“Sight lines?” Dorian asked, nonplussed. 

Bull rubbed at his temple, a tic Dorian had seen in enough staff meetings to know this conversation was not going how Bull had wanted it. 

Behind Tama, Grim mimed bringing a rifle up to his eye, squinting, and then taking a shot. It was an uncannily accurate pantomime, right down to the twitch of the trigger finger and slight jerk of a gun’s recoil. Dorian wondered if his college offered miming classes.

Tama affected a look of mild surprise. “Has Ashkaari not told you of my vocation?”

“He said you ran a tea shop,” Dorian replied, shooting Bull a venomous look. 

“She does _now_ ,” Dalish said, giggling. 

“Before I retired I was the head operative of the Ben-Hassrath group.”

“I’m sorry?” Dorian could hear a slight ringing in his ears. Everyone knew who the Ben-Hassrath were, even if half of everyone considered them merely a conspiracy theory. He was pretty certain they were technically classed as a terrorist cell in Tevinter, and considered something in between boogeymen and folk heroes everywhere else. Supposedly, they were started by disgruntled members of the Qunari secret police, though very few people gave that theory much credit. 

“She _founded_ the Ben-Hassrath,” Skinner corrected, a dark smirk on her face.

“It’s a family business,” Krem turned away from the wreaths long enough to give Dorian a truly evil grin.

Bull had progressed to hiding his face with both hands, the spritz press lying abandoned on a cookie sheet. “You guys couldn’t be normal for one week,” he mumbled.

“So when you said government oversight...” Dorian looked at Lace. Lace was normal. Lace probably hadn’t killed that many people. Lace would help him.

Lace gave a cheerful shrug. “I mean, we do see governments. And we’re usually physically over them. Looking...through...uh...sights.” 

A lot of the strange moments over the past few days were starting to make sense. Dorian didn’t like it at all. 

“Well that’s the gingerbread dough done,” Stitches said awkwardly, patting a lump of brown dough he was covering in plastic wrap. “Let’s put away the new vanilla and have a lunch break?” 

Retha patted Dorian on the shoulder as they passed, ostensibly gathering up newly bean-filled vodka and bourbon bottles. “I’d tell you that you get used to it, but it’s actually just weirder from here on in,” they told him quietly. 

“Dorian will stay to assist me with the oven,” Tama announced when everyone else began scuffling around, attempting to get boots and coats on, and Dorian supposed that was that. Someone pressed a flask into his hand as they left, so quick that Dorian couldn’t actually tell if it was Dalish or Grim that had done it, though he suspected the latter. 

“Are you going to kill me, now that I know?” he asked when the others had left. “I don’t anticipate being able to stop you if you are, I just like to know how to plan my day.” 

Tama didn’t laugh, but the corners of her eyes crinkled for a moment, and Dorian chose to count that as a win. “Not today, I think, imekari.” She was scooping Dorian’s peanut butter dough onto a sheet pan, a complicated little movement using two spoons ensured each one landed round and even, regimented-looking inches between them. She seemed disinclined to fill the silence.

“It must have been hard, raising children and… ” he trailed off, unable to properly vocalize “and assassinating corrupt world leaders.” 

“It should have been harder,” Tama said, finishing one pan and moving on to the next. “I retired for Cremisus, and the others that came after him. When Ashkaari was younger...” she shook her head, the end of her long braid just starting to slide out of its pins. Dorian stayed silent, watching to see if it would fall. “I had to choose, at times, between my career and my son. I stand by my reasons, but I do not believe now that what I chose then was right.” 

“I’m sure you were-- that you were there when it mattered,” Dorian told her. Bull was better-adjusted than he was, at any rate. And any fool could see that he had grown up safe and happy and well-loved. 

“There are some promises that can only be made to one person at a time.” Tama’s voice was softer than Dorian was used to hearing it. “Do not let Ashkaari fool you. I love him. As much as I possibly can. But I was not always a good mother. He has always been a good son, and I am proud of the man he grew to be.” 

“He doesn’t believe it, you know. He’s never spoken of you like you were flawed. Bull talks like he had the perfect childhood.” 

The smile Tama gave him was soft and sad. “He is kinder than I deserve. Tell me, Imekari, would a man with a perfect mother be frightened to tell her when she has made a false assumption?” 

Dorian froze. “You know,” he accused. “You knew the whole time.” 

Tama inclined her head, her arms not pausing in their work. “I have always known. He is not terribly subtle, my son.” 

“Then why—“

“Because he is lonely, Dorian. Because he goes out with people who are kind, but not clever, or pleasant but not kind. They do not learn the names of his siblings, or care that he has days where he hardly laughs. Ashkaari hides himself, when he is outside his family. But you do not let him.”

It was the most Tama had spoken all at once since Dorian arrived, and he found himself speechless at the sheer weight of it, the responsibility he was being given by a woman he hardly knew. 

A pan of peanut butter cookies was thrust into Dorian’s hand. “You must place these in the oven.” 

There was a clatter as the rest of the Chargers returned from putting the vanilla away in the shed. Rocky poked his head into the kitchen, ever mindful of his stand mixer radius. “No burgers this year?” He asked, confused. 

“Dorian is allergic to beef,” Tama said, completely calm. 

“Beef?” Rocky repeated incredulously. Tama nodded, and he started to snigger. 

Dorian shut the oven and closed his eyes even as he heard Dalish start to howl with laughter.


	17. Strike The Harp And Join The Chorus

Bull’s family was going to kill him. He was going to die of embarrassment because of them, if Dorian didn’t get there first. Dorian hated being laughed at, everyone in the school district knew it. Only Stitches and Retha were staying out of the fray. The fray included a lot of beef puns. 

Some of them, like Dalish, took a direct approach: “Does this mean you can’t have Bull’s sausage?” She skillfully ducked Tama’s spoon, though she wasn’t lucky enough to miss the vicious elbow Bull threw into her side.

“I’m generally the one putting something in his buns,” Dorian’s face was utterly impassive. Bull was in awe. 

Rocky, meanwhile, was nearly on the floor laughing. The only thing he managed to wheeze out was “ _beef jerky_ ” before collapsing into hysterics.

“Oh so you’re a dreidel then,” Krem said.

Dorian raised his eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”

“A Jewish top.” Lace’s comedic timing was excellent, and also likely to be Bull’s demise. Watching Dorian roll up his sleeves and mix cookie dough by hand had shot his ability to not think about things like this in graphic detail. 

Tama rapped her spoon on the counter. “We are eating stir fry. It is vegan, so that Rocky and Navid may ingest it as well. What clever jokes can we tell about that?”

Skinner promptly raised her hand, and Tama sighed in defeat. “Very well. Get it out of your system.”

“Will the stir fry have any of Rocky’s famous eggplant?” She asked.

“Rocky’s eggplant is _not_ famous,” Stitches objected.

“It’s pretty well known around campus,” Navid mumbled, not looking up from his phone.

Tama closed her eyes briefly. “We will return to the kitchen to bake in twenty-eight minutes. Use your time wisely.”

They all scrambled for the food. Dorian, who was closest, and likely the only sober adult aside from Bull himself, got his plate first. 

Bull, claiming sibling seniority and partner privileges, sidled up behind him.

“Wait!” shouted Retha. They seized Bull by the shoulders and wrenched him backward. Everyone froze. “You can’t go near Dorian, Bull! He’s _allergic_.”

Chaos ensued. 

Tama’s lunch ended when the timer for the peanut butter cookies went off, and everyone else reluctantly followed her back into the kitchen over the next few minutes. 

Bull and Dorian pressed chocolate kisses into some of the warm cookies while Krem scored others with a fork. Bull held one up to Dorian’s mouth, and it took only a tiny bit of coaxing for him to eat it. 

It was totally worth the light tap he received, turning sheepishly to face Tama, holding her spoon and giving him a perfunctory frown. “The cookies are not for eating,” she reprimanded. 

“Sorry,” Dorian mumbled through a mouth full of chocolate.

“There is no need,” Tama told him. “Ashkaari is merely a corrupting influence.” 

“That’s not what you said when he convinced me to get a tattoo on my--” Lace elbowed Krem before he could finish the sentence.

“He showed me anime,” Stitches mumbled, shamefaced. 

“He bought me beer,” Rocky volunteered.

“He bought me a _sword_ ,” Skinner said dreamily. 

“You see what I must endure,” Tama told Dorian.

“Hey,” Bull cut in before this could get worse. “Stitches, I showed you Studio Ghibli. You found anime on your own.” 

“And the tattoo?” Krem prompted.

“No, that was definitely just me being a bad influence.” Bull popped another peanut butter cookie into his mouth. They were pretty damn good.

Tama threw up her hands and shooed everyone back to work. 

Decorating sugar cookies was about four hundred and fifty-two times more fun than working the spritz press. That didn’t mean Bull was good at it.

“That’s a lovely design,” Dorian told him, his voice carefully neutral. “What are you making?”

Bull glowered at him. “Really? The kindergarten art project schtick?”

“Well I wouldn’t want to offend you by guessing wrong. The design is… er, rather abstract.” He was the picture of innocence, and Bull didn’t know if he hated him or just wanted to make out with him. 

“It’s a heart,” Bull grumbled at last. At his other elbow, Nadine was hard at work on a passably recognizable deepstalker. 

“Very avant garde,” Dorian said quickly. “I love your use of jagged angles to communicate the--”

“Shut up,” Bull said.

Dorian grinned and blew him a sarcastic little kiss that definitely didn’t make Bull’s heart flutter. “Now where’s that edible glitter?”

“No glitter for you under this roof,” Tama told him. Dorian flushed. 

“Is this something I should know about?” Bull asked.

“No,” Dorian and Tama said as one. 

Bull stared at the misshapen heart and tried not to think about Tama and Dorian having inside jokes. It was bad enough that he was already so attached. 

The rest of cookie day flew by in a sticky haze of decorating, eating, and the occasional beef pun. Dorian handled the whole thing like a trooper, and the only reason Bull didn’t spend more time beaming proudly at him was because he didn’t actually enjoy looking like a totally lovesick idiot in front of his family and fake boyfriend. 

From the looks he occasionally intercepted from his siblings, though, he wasn’t sure he succeeded. Krem watched the pair of them with sharp eyes, and Grim kept glancing down at his phone and smirking whenever Bull looked his way. 

Dorian didn’t know, though, Bull was pretty sure. And while that was a relief, it also meant Bull had to tell him. Dorian had agreed to spend the holidays pretending to be Bull’s boyfriend, but Bull actually… wanting things from him wasn’t part of the deal that they’d made. He couldn’t decide if it would be worse to tell him now or confess after this was all over.

It didn’t help that, teasing aside, everyone seemed to really like Dorian. He listened--with sincere interest--while Nadine rattled off facts about deepstalkers at a mile a minute, and had inside jokes with Tama, and during lunch he had even allowed Skinner to quietly show him her favorite knife. Which was either a really good sign or a really bad one, but today Bull was leaning good. Dorian hadn’t immediately demanded that Bull drive him home, in any case. It was just easy to imagine him here next year, too. And at all the other events they got together for in between. 

Tama tapped the counter on her way to check on Rocky. “Cookies, Ashkaari.”

Dorian smirked at him. “Lost in thought?”

“Just thinking about dinner.” Bull offered a weak smile. It wasn’t a total lie. He was thinking about Eid al-Fitr and cooking with Dorian.

Dorian had a bit of blue icing on his forehead. Bull wet his thumb and wiped the smudge clean. Dorian gave him a shy smile in return, which Bull chose to interpret with an undue level of optimism. 

Tama clapped her hands together and Bull jumped. “And now,” she announced grandly, “You will all clean up my kitchen.” 

Everyone groaned, but did as instructed. Bull snagged a broom before he could get stuck scrubbing mixing bowls like last year. Dorian, meanwhile, sauntered over to the sink, apparently on purpose. Bull handed his broom off to Navid, and picked up a dishtowel instead. 

“You wash, I’ll dry?” It wasn’t actually the least sexy thing he had murmured in someone’s ear, though it was probably in the top ten. 

Dorian smiled anyways, nodding as he handed Bull the now-clean gingerbread bowl. 

He worked steadily, and Bull was floored by his efficiency, and tried to say as much. “You’re uh, faster, at this, than I thought.” 

Dorian raised an eyebrow at him. “Did you think I languished in indolence?” 

“No, I just can’t dry as fast as you can scrub, and that’s kinda weird for me.” It was true, the mixing bowls were piling up next to the sink, all of them spotless.

Dorian gave him another one of those shy smiles. “I was a dishwasher at an Antivan restaurant all through college. It didn’t pay for all my student loans, but I got rent, and food. I honestly believed I was going to hate it but after a time I started to find the process... meditative, I suppose, would be the best term for it. The idea that one has a simple task, that one must move forwards and keep moving.” 

Bull thought of the obsessive way Tama pulled weeds and trimmed her rose bushes, one tiny stalk at a time. “Yeah, I sorta get that.” 

They stood still at the sink while everyone bustled around them. There was plenty of grumbling, but everyone stayed pretty quiet.

“Is this part of the tradition?” Dorian asked. “To clean in near silence?”

“Tama got up around four this morning to get the last of the supplies we needed, and she doesn’t like to say it, but her feet are as old as the rest of her. She’s upstairs soaking them, and we like to pretend that if we’re quiet, she’ll take a nap instead of forcing herself to get up before she’s ready.”

Dorian was quiet. “She’s really a remarkable woman, Bull. I can see why you love her so much.”

“I’m lucky to have her.”

“Bull, she…” Dorian stopped. “She’s lucky to have you, too.” 

Bull could tell there was something unsaid there, but allowed them to lapse into companionable silence, drying the mixing bowls one at a time.


	18. Bundled Up Together Like Two Birds Of A Feather Should Be

They had Rivaini takeout for dinner. Nobody felt like messing up the nice clean kitchen after cookie day. Dorian watched in fascination as all of Bull’s siblings made complex barters for bits of one anothers’ meals. 

He kept mostly to his own spicy rice dish, but ended up with a sizable portion of Bull’s food as well. Really, it was a miracle the food wound up on his plate and not in his lap, considering how they were squeezed together on the couch, elbow space a precious commodity.

The jokes about his allergies had petered out, allowing him to burrow into Bull’s side in relative peace. He wasn’t even required to rouse himself to choose a movie they should watch, since the argument and eventual decision seemed to be as steeped in tradition as every other part of Cookie Day.

Dorian dozed off before the discussion was even over, too warm and tired to even be embarrassed.

 

Bull didn’t want to move. Dorian was curled against him, breath whistling in and out like the tiniest snore. He’d draped a blanket over them when he noticed Dorian’s eyes sliding closed half an hour ago, and that seemed to have set Dorian firmly down the path of sleep. His mouth was a little slack, brow furrowed in the way it always seemed to be. He had a hand around Bull’s wrist, too, just sort of holding onto him, but Bull was sort of worried that if he thought too much about that, his racing pulse might wake Dorian up.

But on the whole, he’d given up being embarrassed. His siblings barely even seemed to care. Lace had migrated more or less into Krem’s lap, Retha was playing with Stitches’ hair, and Adelaide and Grim were sharing pillows and blankets on the floor. From the outside, he and Dorian weren’t doing anything different.

This was part of their holiday tradition-- sitting around, talking about nothing until Tama told them to go to bed. That was probably coming soon, Nadine and Rhiannon had been carried off almost an hour ago, complaining sleepily all the way. 

The news was playing on the TV, muted, the announcer reporting a “mysterious object” pulled by halla detected in the sky with barely restrained mirth. Tama seemed to disapprove, but didn’t turn it off until the report switched over to politics. 

“We will open presents in the morning,” she told them, standing up at last. “I have instructed Nadine and Rhiannon to stay in their beds until seven, but after that there is no guarantee of peace.”

Everyone nodded at her. She kissed each of them good night. Even Dorian, who was sound asleep, received a gentle peck on the forehead, Tama’s hand stroking his hair back where it had slid towards his face. 

Everyone else trailed to bed after her in twos and threes, Krem lingering to gesture to Dorian. “Need help getting him to bed?” his voice was soft. Lace waited for him in the living room doorway, her face fond.

“Nah, I’ve got it.” Bull petted through Dorian’s hair, telling himself it was to sell the part. 

Krem nodded, trailing after his girlfriend, and then he and Dorian were alone.

“Come on, Dorian, get up,” Bull muttered. “It’s time for bed.”

“No,” Dorian mumbled.

“You can’t sleep here,” he said, trying to lever Dorian upright. It didn’t work. “Don’t make me carry you.”

“You wouldn’t...” Dorian nestled himself further into Bull’s chest. 

“I’m gonna, unless you get up on your own.”

“Make me.” It was going to wreak havoc on Bull’s professional life that he now found that cute. 

“Okay, you asked for it.” He hooked his arms under Dorian’s kees and back, and it wasn’t easy to lift him, but he got them down the hall and into his room without too many problems. Spork followed them, tail waving curiously, and slipped in before Bull shut the door.

He hopped up onto Bull’s bed when he put Dorian down, and poked at Dorian’s cheek with his nose.

“Here’s your elegantly coordinated sleep ensemble,” Bull said, tossing Dorian’s clothes onto his chest a lot less gently than he’d placed Dorian. “You’re gonna have to undress yourself.”

“Fuck off,” Dorian grumbled, stroking Spork. 

“How about I just go brush my teeth and let you change instead?” When Dorian made an affirmative grumble, Bull took his own sleep pants and headed for the bathroom, sitting down on the edge of the bathtub, eye closed. He let his breathing go, counting the seconds it took to stop feeling Dorian pressed against his chest. 

 

After Bull left the room, Dorian flopped backwards onto the bed, cradling his pajamas to his chest. He had recovered enough to slide into the pants, but was still staring sort of hopelessly at the top when Bull sidled back in. “I made it halfway there,” Dorian said, trying to ignore the fact that he was lying shirtless in Bull’s childhood bed while Bull, also shirtless, looked on. Spork chose that moment to step onto Dorian’s folded pajama shirt, turn around twice, and then nestle himself into it with every appearance of going to sleep.

“Looks like halfway’s as far as you’re going to get,” Bull told him. Dorian watched his eye take in Dorian’s chest, then skip away. “I don’t uh, I don’t mind if you don’t.” 

Dorian shook his head. He didn’t mind. It was a bad idea, but he didn’t mind. 

Bull had to move Spork anyway, to get under the covers, but neither of them addressed the issue. He pulled the blanket up over both of them and turned off the light.

Dorian was just tired enough to reach towards Bull when he laid down, making an abortive motion that wound up brushing Bull’s scarred eye socket, rather than his cheek. He was pretty sure that was worse, but it was too late to take it back now. He couldn’t see Bull’s expression, but he could feel him tense and then relax. He didn’t move his hand away.

“How did you lose this?” he asked softly, brushing the scarred place on Bull’s browbone and then tracing the line down once more. It was suddenly important to him that Bull know he wasn’t concerned by it.

“Bar fight,” Bull’s breath was scarcely a stirring in the air. “Well, a fight next to a bar, technically.” 

“No,” Dorian said. He had a hard time imagining Bull as the sort to go out borrowing trouble, even in his younger days. 

“Yep. Krem got… into some trouble with some guys outside. I got in the way.” 

“You mean you got him out of the way.” It was probably taking a liberty, touching Bull’s face this way, his fingers still tracing up and down across the ragged scar, but Bull hadn’t told him to stop, and Dorian didn’t want to. 

Bull chuckled, and it was odd, Dorian thought, how reassuring that noise was, here in the dark. “Didn’t know what else to do, at the time. It turned out for the best, anyways. Everybody lived, those idiots never hassled anyone again. And we were still kids so Tama got our records expunged. Not even a self defense ruling.” 

“You were...” 

“About seventeen. The driving test is a bitch when you’ve just lost depth perception.”

Dorian wanted to kiss him, wanted to stop him being so nonchalant about this tremendous thing, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t his place. He didn’t know how. 

“When I was seventeen, my parents threatened to send me to public school.”

“I’ve heard those places can be real rough,” Bull said dryly. “The teachers especially.”

“I’d just been expelled from my fourth academy in five years,” Dorian went on, “and they.... I wound up... Well, skipping over some unpleasantness, I wound up in public school eventually, and that was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. It’s why I.... It’s why I’m here now, I suppose.” 

“Why you became a teacher?”

Dorian’s laugh was high and sharp. “That, too.” 

Bull’s fingers clenched around Dorian’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he said at last, “for telling me.” 

“If you told me then that I would wind up here, I would have laughed in your face.” It was a fairly ridiculous situation. 

“Hey, if you had told me you’d end up here two weeks ago, I would have laughed in your face,” Bull replied, making a gesture in the dark that Dorian assumed was meant to take in Bull’s bedroom, the house, the icy, clear night outside. “But I’m glad you’re here, now. However it happened.”

It wasn’t really fair, that Bull was so… kind. There were other words, but kind was safest. “Me too.”

He could practically feel Bull smiling at him. “Get some sleep, big guy. I hear there’s gonna be presents in the morning.” 

Dorian heard a movement, but he still wasn’t prepared for it when Bull’s lips brushed the corner of his mouth. He froze, breath caught in his throat, but Bull was already flat on his back again, and neither of them said another word.


	19. I Don't Care About the Presents Underneath the Christmas Tree

Bull’s alarm went off at seven, startling both of them awake.

“The other option was letting Nadine and Rhiannon wake us up again,” he said apologetically to Dorian, who looked positively wrathful.

Bull gave him the room, since he didn’t mind wandering around the house without a shirt. He grabbed half of Krem’s bagel and made coffee for Dorian, since there was only one cup left in the pot when he got to the kitchen. He set another pot brewing, since he wasn’t the only one who’d want more, and brought it back to his room.

They should talk, sometime today. Bull was dreading it. He couldn’t see Dorian being thrilled by the revelation that Bull had lured him here under false pretenses-- the longer he thought about Dorian, the more clear it was that even though he’d realized the situation just recently, it had actually been going on for a while.

He didn’t want to think he was that unobservant, but looking at his actions over the past few months, everything made a lot more sense if he assumed that feelings were involved.

The way his mouth felt a little dry when he opened his door and found Dorian looking at him, for example. It was a more intense reaction than usual, since Dorian was in his bed and not wearing a shirt, but it wasn’t wholly unfamiliar. He remembered seeing Dorian help Emmauld find his stuffed rabbit and feeling almost the same way.

He needed to get his thoughts in order before he tried to start the conversation, though. If he didn’t he’d probably panic again and do something stupid like try to kiss Dorian and then change his mind because Dorian wouldn’t want to kiss him, and then pretend to go to sleep so he could just avoid the whole thing. He could probably only do that once in twenty four hours.

He closed the door behind him and held the coffee mug out to Dorian. Dorian accepted it with sleepy graciousness, and then downed half of it in one swallow.

“Now, I expect we don’t have long before we’re summoned to breakfast. I have some gifts for everyone in my bags.”

“You what?” Maybe Bull should have taken the coffee for himself and made Dorian wait.

“I have picture books for the girls, a set of mugs for Tama-- my friend is a ceramicist-- and scented candles for everyone else.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Bull said around the lump in his throat. “I was just going to say all of my gifts were from both of us.”

Dorian shrugged and opened the larger of his two suitcases. It was mostly full of neatly-wrapped gifts, with only a few scarves pairs of socks as insulation. “To be honest, I’m regifting the mugs-- I just don’t have the cupboard space for a matched set. I just asked Varric and Aveline what the fifth and third grade classes like best this year, and the candles are utterly generic. Most of them aren’t even real scents.”

“That’s still a lot more effort than you needed to go to.” The candles didn’t look small. He wondered guiltily how much Dorian had spent on presents for people he was only pretending to like.

“Now that I know them, of course, I wish I’d done more. I saw this clever knife-sharpening tool on TV the other week. I could have gotten it for Skinner. And there was this book on Dragon Age medical diagrams in the bookshop near my house that Retha would just love.”

Bull just nodded.

“And now that I’ve seen you here in your natural habitat, I see that I really should have gotten you a spritz press of your own. It’s your calling, clearly.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” Bull groaned. Dorian smirked at him, and he sighed. “Thanks. I mean it.”

“My parents might have raised a hedonistic, deviant public school-teacher, but they did not raise an impolite guest.” He closed his suitcase and stood up.

“‘Course not. That would be scandalous.” Bull tried not to smile too fondly. “Come on, there’s more coffee in the kitchen. And bagels. Krem’s was pretty good.” 

“I’m really learning quite a lot about siblings,” Dorian said, and followed Bull out the door. 

Tama was in the kitchen, stroking Spork and scowling at the coffee pot while she waited for the tea kettle to boil. 

Bull kissed her on the cheek and poured himself the coffee that he desperately needed. He saw Dorian hover awkwardly for half a second before he hurriedly kissed Tama as well. She smiled as he strode over to the coffee maker like he hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary, face a little flushed.

His cheeks darkened further when he met Bull’s eye, but he quickly went back to staring into his coffee with the tiniest of smiles.

Bull was doomed, and it wasn’t even seven-thirty.

The stairs above them thundered, heralding Rhiannon and Nadine’s arrival. Their mothers trailed after them at a much more sedate pace. It seemed even Dalish had foregone exercise in favor of more sleep this morning. 

Despite Tama’s best efforts to keep the girls sitting at breakfast table, they had harried everyone into the living room before the clock struck eight-thirty. The presents were stacked by the large potted jade plant Tama prefered over a cut pine, Dorian having managed to sneak both his and Bull’s into the pile while Nadine was preoccupying her sister with bagel toppings. 

Rhiannon took it upon herself to distribute the presents, reading the names carefully and announcing each recipient with gravity. It took a really long time, but no one was bothered by that.

Bull watched Dorian, who had settled back onto the couch with his legs folded under him and both hands wrapped around his coffee mug, hastily rearranging himself every time Rhiannon brought him a present. By the end of the distribution, he didn’t have the largest pile, but he seemed surprised that he had any gifts at all.

Bull sort of wanted to kiss him, but that probably wouldn’t go over well.

Rhiannon decreed that Tama would open one present first, since she had the most, and then they’d go in a circle. It was pure coincidence that she was second.

Dorian opened his gift from Tama first, under instruction from Rhiannon, since it was the largest box. It was an electric blanket, and Bull had helped advise her on the color, since Tama would have chosen white if he hadn’t intervened. It was a soft heather gray instead, and Dorian looked positively touched. He spread it out on top of the blanket that he and Bull were already sharing, not even bothering to plug it in.

Krem was the first one to unwrap his candle, which was scented like “Spangled Twilight”, whatever that smelled like. He put it next to the culinary blowtorch that Bull had bought for him.

It took them a while, slowly circling the room while the pile of wrapping paper in the middle of the floor grew bigger and bigger. Bull remembered when it had been just him and Tama in this room, just watching a movie and eating takeout on Christmas. It had been nice, but it had been sort of lonely too.

“Do you think she’ll like the mugs?” Dorian whispered to him quietly. Tama hadn’t unwrapped his gift yet, and Dorian kept glancing at it nervously.

Bull rubbed his arm and Dorian leaned against him a little more. “Of course she will. Unless they’re really freaking ugly, but I don’t think you’d give an ugly gift.”

“It just seems so impersonal now,” Dorian muttered.

Rhiannon glared at them. “We’re watching Retha open their present from Rocky now,” she said. “You have to focus, Uncle Tibby. You wouldn’t like it if no one paid attention to you.” He would, actually, at this particular moment. He would like that a lot.

“Sorry,” Bull said.

“Don’t say sorry to me, say sorry to Retha,” Rhiannon ordered.

“Sorry Retha,” Bull echoed obediently. When Rhiannon turned away again he jabbed Dorian lightly in the side. “Why didn’t you get in trouble? You started it.”

Dorian laughed, and Bull wanted to kiss him. He had to say something. “Hey, Dorian, after this, do you think we could--” 

By the fireplace, Skinner let out a shriek of joy. “Amber Moon! How did you know?” She was clutching a browninsh yellow scented candle to her chest. 

“I...didn’t,” Dorian said. “You’re kidding, right?” 

“She’s not,” Dalish looked a little pained. “She loves them and I won’t buy them for her.”

“They fill the home with a relaxing fall scent,” Skinner sniffed, cradling the candle protectively. 

“They fill the home with the smell of patchouli and wasted money,” Dalish grumbled, but the smile she gave Dorian was affectionate all the same. 

“You were saying?” Dorian asked, turning back to Bull.

“Oh, uh, just thinking we should...talk for a second. After gifts. Before we go home.”

“Of course,” Dorian said. He looked over at Adelaide, who was opening her last gift.

“It’s about the, uh--” Bull cleared his throat. It was about the almost-kiss the night before, and everything else, like how Dorian had been holding his hand ever since he finished his coffee. But he couldn’t make himself say that. “What we’ve been doing, and...you know, us. I’m not sure that… ” he trailed off.

There was something tight around Dorian’s eyes. Shit. “If you wish.”

The gift-giving went on, but Bull couldn’t concentrate. Dorian kept a careful few inches between them at all times, and though it was far closer than he’d ever sat a week ago, Bull felt the distance as keenly as if he’d been across the room. 

He saw Grim note the distance as well, his sharp eyes taking in Dorian’s posture, Bull’s own hesitance. His youngest brother quirked an eyebrow, then very deliberately turned back to his own presents, leaning forwards to whisper something in Adelaide’s ear as he went. 

The unwrapping went on from there, only one person (oddly enough, Stitches, this year) having to be sharply ordered not to open a gift in front of the kids. Bull was content to watch for the most part, unwrapping when his niece directed and ignoring the way not touching Dorian made his skin prickle. 

Lunch was unbearable. Tama made tea for everyone but Retha (raspberry-peach zinger for Bull, Orange Spice for Dorian), and chicken with broccoli for everyone but Rocky and Navid, and Bull could scarcely make himself look at Dorian. Finally, Dorian finished about a third of his plate, politely thanked Tama for the meal, and stood, pulling Bull with him. 

Bull had barely shut the door to their room behind him when Dorian whirled to face him. “You wanted to talk,” he said. “Let’s hear it.”


	20. I Really Can't Stay

The seconds ticked by, Dorian marking them with the tap of two fingers against his folded arms, like taking a pulse. He’d been caught, he knew that, knew that this conversation was an end, but he wasn’t about to make this easy for Bull, couldn’t imagine why Bull would choose to hash this out before the six-hour car ride they were facing together, rather than politely ignoring Dorian’s infatuation for one more day. 

“Dorian,” Bull began, “I--” 

Dorian waited, keeping time. 

“I noticed that--” No more words came out. 

“You noticed?” Dorian prompted. He wasn’t within his rights to be angry, he knew that. Bull had never led him to believe there would be anything more than friendship between them, had made that painfully clear. Even with... whatever happened last night, Bull could have mentioned that before now. And it had surely been a reflex, or a clumsy attempt to cover the emotionality of the moment, besides. He had nothing to be upset about, beyond setting his own foolish hopes too high. 

Bull let out a gusty sigh. “I guess this talk has been a long time coming, huh?” 

“I suppose it has.” 

Bull was fidgeting, one hand rubbing at his horn again. Dorian catalogued the movement instinctively, something to remember later on. “I know that... I mean, I understand that the way I feel about you isn’t...the same. As the way you feel about me.” 

“Great,” Dorian tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice and failed miserably. “I know that too. What’s the purpose of this conversation?” 

“I need to get it all out on the table, I guess.” Bull fidgeted some more. “If we’re on the same page, we can move forward? Or something like that. Still be friends?” He really was appallingly nice, even though Dorian couldn’t bear to look him in the eye. 

“Of course we’re still friends.”

“Good, I’m glad.” Bull’s smile looked tentative. “I know that this has been… really weird. Being here with my family, and, uh, everything. But it’s opened my eyes--”

Dorian tried to relax his jaw. He’d give himself a headache, at this rate.

“I’d like to-- you know, hang out, and stuff. Have fun together.” Bull took a step toward him. Dorian stepped back. “I want things between us to keep going like they have been…”

Like they had been before, Bull meant. Before Bull realized the sort of sad puppydog that was following him around, agreeing to stupid stunts just to get a scrap of attention. 

“Of course,” Dorian ground out.

“Dorian,” Bull said, and it was the sound of his name that brought it all crashing down around his ears. “When you say it like that-- I don’t feel like…”

“Sorry,” Dorian snapped, voice too brittle, “I’ll try to sound more enthusiastic next time.” He turned on his heel and exited Bull’s room, opening the door directly into Krem and Grim. Krem looked gobsmacked, Grim deeply unimpressed.

“Did you guys just--” Krem looked from Dorian to Bull’s bedroom door and lowered his voice. “Did you just break up? Just now? What the fuck?”

“Well, don’t worry, Krem, we’re still _friends_.” Dorian tried to slide further down the hall without actually touching anyone.

“Right.” Krem’s face darkened, and he moved towards Bull’s room. 

“Idiot,” Grim said, following Dorian. 

“I beg your pardon?”

Grim didn’t bother repeating himself. 

“He _is_ an idiot,” Dorian muttered. Grim made a neutral-sounding grunt, which Dorian thought was probably the kindest piece of fallout he could expect from Bull’s family.

There weren’t many people in the living room, which was a blessing. Adelaide and Retha were far easier to face than Tama or Nadine would have been. “I should leave,” Dorian heard himself say.

“Is everything alright?” Retha asked. Dorian was fairly sure it was clear that nothing was alright, but he appreciated the sentiment.

Grim did something behind Dorian’s back that apparently answered the question. 

“I see,” Retha said. They patted Dorian gently on the shoulder. “Adelaide and I will get your things.” 

Adelaide looked up from her phone when she and Retha reentered the living room towing Dorians two suitcases and a heavy hiking backpack that must have been Grim’s. She kissed Grim on the cheek and murmured, “Lace and I will take Krem’s car back. You do what needs doing.” 

Grim gave her a soft, grateful smile and squeezed her hand before towing Dorian out to one of the half dozen cars parked in Tama’s driveway and throwing his bags in the back seat. 

Neither of them spoke until Grim had navigated his way down the narrow mountain road and was merging onto the highway. 

“I don’t suppose there’s any point now in continuing to pretend we were dating.” 

Grim shook his head. Dorian’s phone began to vibrate against his leg. He didn’t even look at the screen before rejecting the call. 

“To be honest, it seems there was little point in ever pretending. You didn’t look particularly surprised when I saw you.” 

Another no. 

“Krem was surprised.” 

Grim shrugged one shoulder, somehow conveying yeah, but Krem’s an idiot without so much as pausing as he flipped off his blinker. 

“I don’t suppose whether or not we fooled them really matters, though. At least not now.” he was coming down from the anger now, could feel the guilt and exhaustion creeping in. “Tama was the only person we were really committed to fooling, and that was an exercise in futility from the start.” 

A nod. Dorian waited for more, anything from words to a slight clearing of the throat would have been acceptable, but Grim seemed content to wait him out, not even turning music on in the background. He wasn’t sure how long it took him to crack under the oppressive silence, but he got the feeling the time was embarrassingly short. 

“I have feelings,” Dorian said at last. “For your brother.”

“Mmm.” Dorian’s phone was ringing again.

“He doesn’t feel the same.”

Grim’s snort was both derisive and eloquent.

“It’s true,” Dorian said, trying not to let the weight of the words take hold again. “He made that perfectly clear during our...conversation this afternoon.” 

Grim was tapping on the steering wheel, fingers moving in a rhythm only he could hear. He didn’t make any sign of having heard Dorian. 

“You disagree?” Dorian asked. He turned off his phone for a third time. 

A slight nod. It could have just been Grim checking the rearview mirror.

“You think that Bull has been harboring some sort of-- some sort of _crush_ on me, and--” Dorian couldn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t know what sort of ending it could possibly have.

Grim’s phone rang. Grim picked it up, listening to the other end for a long moment. “Yep,” he said, and hung up. 

“Who was that?” Dorian asked. 

Grim was silent once more. It was a long ride back. 

 

Bull sat on the bed and stared at the door. That wasn’t how he’d expected that conversation to go, to say the least.

He heard Krem in the hallway, incredulous, and Dorian, low and angry. He heard Grim’s actual voice, which was never good.

He’d seen Dorian angry before. One of his students’ parents had pulled them from a field trip because they thought the history of ailenages wasn’t a topic that should be taught to fourth graders. Or at all. He’d been impressed with how Dorian had handled it, but his professional demeanor and articulate case for education in _educational spaces_ had evaporated once they were in Bull’s office. And he still hadn’t sounded quite like that.

“What the fuck did you say to him?” Krem demanded, slamming the door behind him.

Bull spread his hands. “I don’t know.”

“You’d better figure it out fast, because he’s pissed.” Krem pulled the chair over from Bull’s desk. “I think he might leave.”

Bull nodded numbly.

“And you’re just going to sit here?” 

“What else can I do?” Bull asked miserably. He’d said his piece, been rejected in no uncertain terms. 

“Apologize? Or-- I mean, maybe he should apologize too at some point? But he doesn’t seem like the type to storm off for no reason.”

“Clearly you’ve never been in a staff meeting with him.” 

Krem rolled his eyes, refusing to dignify that with an answer. “I don’t know what’s going on, but from the hallway at least, it sounded like he was more upset than you are.” 

“I--” Bull sighed. “We’re not really dating.”

“You’re not really _what_?” Krem hissed. 

“We’re not actually dating. I asked him to come along because Tama thought we were and… ” 

“Okay,” It was clear Krem was trying to maintain some semblance of emotional control. It had never worked before, but Bull appreciated the effort. “Okay.”

“We agreed that we’d just, like, fake it. For her. And then we’d never talk about it again.”

“Bull, I owe Lace fifty sovereigns and some services I will not be discussing with you here because I thought you were going to _propose_ to him. You’re telling me you’re not even dating?”

“You seem kinda stuck on this one thing here and--”

Krem fixed him with a murderous look. 

“Yeah, okay fine, we’re not dating.” 

“ _Why not?_ ” Krem turned the words into burning, angry little syllable fragments. 

“Because he doesn’t have any-- any sort of romantic feelings for me?” Bull suggested. “Because the moment I even suggested that I’m… that I do, he ran out of the room like I’d thrown nug shit at him?”

 

Retha and Adelaide entered the room, not bothering to knock. Retha tried to offer them an apologetic smile as they edged around the two of them, scooping Dorian’s suitcases into their arms. Krem didn’t say anything in front of the others, but didn’t bother to stop looming over him, either.

“Idiot,” Adelaide hissed at Bull, glaring daggers. Somehow, Grim’s opinions hurt even worse when they came with a perky ponytail and and Orlesian accent. 

Bull waited until they closed the door behind them again. He picked up the pillow that Dorian had slept on that morning. “Because he’s leaving?”

“Holy shit,” Krem said. “How am I even related to you, you _giant fucking idiot_.”

“By several legal documents?” Bull tried weakly. 

Krem leaned forward intently. “What-- exactly-- did you say to him? I heard the shit about being friends. How did you fuck up that badly? You were only gone for like, two minutes.”

“Well, uh I was just telling him that, you know, I...”

“The _precise words._ Verbatim.” Krem did a very good Tama when he wanted to. 

Bull told him. Krem imploded. 

“You just spent four nights sleeping in the same bed with him, and you never noticed?”

“Noticed what?” Bull asked, bewildered.

“The guy practically lights up whenever you talk to him. He laughs at your dumb jokes. He put up with _us_.” He gestured at the whole of their home. “It’s like a bad fucking romcom. Every time you look away, he’s staring at you with hearts in his eyes.”

Gravel crunched as Grim pulled out of the driveway. “He’s a good actor,” Bull said weakly. “And a good-- friend.” 

“No, fuck you, no. Nobody is that fucking good for that fucking long. He’s stupid for you. I just assumed you had noticed like, a year ago, and _done something about it.”_ Krem was breathing a little hard when he finished. 

“You’re really mad about those fifty sovereigns, huh?”

“I’m mad because I actually like him, Bull. I liked him when I thought he was your boyfriend, I liked him when we talked shit about Tevinter over latkes, and I liked him this morning when he gave Tama those weird-ass mugs. And I like him most because he obviously makes you happy. Everything I said about him being stupid over you? You’re thirty times worse. You adore him. Also the fifty sovereigns.”

“I know that,” Bull interjected. “That’s the whole problem.”

“I’m not legally allowed to assault civilians so I can’t knock some sense into you, but holy shit, dude. Go apologize and tell him you want to raise mabari puppies together and do arts and crafts projects with your nine children and kiss him at a fucking fireworks show or something.”

“He left, Krem.”

Krem put his face in his hands. “You have counterintelligence training, Bull. Why am I having to instruct you to use a cell phone?”

Bull pulled out his phone and called Dorian, heart in his throat.

He didn’t answer. 

Krem sat down on Bull’s bed, calming down a bit as Bull tried twice more. The call was clicked over to voicemail both times. 

“He’s not answering,” Krem surmised. 

“Now do you believe me?” Bull asked. He really hated being right. 

Krem sighed, pulling his own cell out of his pocket. “You know I hate giving him a chance to gloat.” He put the call to Grim on speakerphone. Grim picked up after the second or third ring, the connection bringing a touch of highway noise in with it.” 

“Grim, I need corroboration, and Bull isn’t trusting my word on this alone. Dorian is practically in love with him at this point, correct?” 

Bull managed to cram an entire existential crisis into the minute pause of Grim taking a breath on the other end of the line. 

“Yep,” Grim said, and then the connection went dead. 

He stood up and grabbed his bag. “We have to go after them.”

“You’re shitting me,” Krem said, but he was already reaching for his keys.


	21. You'll Be Doing All Right/With Your Christmas of White...

Krem was good guy to have on your side when the shit hit the fan. He was the sort of person who stuck on your side and kept you focused on your goals, and worked out solutions to problems as they arose.

As kids, that had meant taking Bull’s grand plans of cookie larceny and orchestrating workable heists in the kitchen, often doing the dangerous work of distracting Tama. At work, it made him a steady and competent operative, good to have in the field or on the comms. Now, it meant overseeing Bull as he packed, said goodbye to everyone, and deflecting all questions to Retha and Adelaide.

Bull felt like that would backfire eventually, and he didn’t hold out any hope of maintaining his and Dorian’s pretense, but he appreciated not being made to talk about what an idiot he was.

Bull put his bag into the back of his car, and just sort of wound up in the passenger seat while Krem muttered at his sideview mirrors. It seemed like that sort of day.

Krem turned on the radio, fiddling with it until it stopped playing Christmas songs and landed on some sort of talk show about cars.

They had gone about thirty miles on the highway before either of them talked.

“You should try calling him again,” Krem said.

Bull sighed. “He doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“I don’t know, he’s been in a car with Grim for an hour now, he might answer just to escape the silence.”

Bull didn’t call him. 

“Maybe this was a bad idea.”

“This whole thing was a bad idea, but you have to see it through now. You made your bed, now lie in it-- you did make your bed before we left Tama’s, right?”

“Of course I did.” Bull watched the familiar trees passing by the windows. “Do you think this will work?”

“In that if you’re actually able to have a coherent conversation with him and explain everything, he’ll want to kiss you, yes. Is that what you mean by ‘work?’”

“Yeah,” Bull said. “Something like that.”

“Then, _if_ you can actually talk to him like an adult, sure. Why not?”

Bull nodded. He could do that. If he could just get Dorian to sit down and listen to him, he could do that. Krem dropped him off at the top of the drive. 

A young, scruffy-looking elven woman answered when he rang the doorbell to Dorian’s house. Bull was pretty sure he recognized her as Sera, Dorian’s friend from the improv comedy troupe. “What?” She snapped.

“Uh, is Dorian here?” Bull asked, rubbing at his horn. 

“Not for you.” She said, and slammed the door. 

Bull thought that, on reflection, not being allowed in the same room as Dorian might throw a bit of a wrench into his adult conversation plans. 

 

“Who was that, Sera?” Dorian asked. 

Sera was tromping back up the stairs, a new bottle of wine in each hand; Dorian and Varric had split their first one, and both were slightly tipsy. Sera had the alcohol tolerance of a healthy adult bronto. She shrugged and sprawled back out on Dorian’s bed. “Door to door Andrastians again. I told them to fuck off. Figured you weren’t in the mood for it.” 

Dorian nodded, watching bleary-eyed as Harpyia settled down to gnaw contentedly on Varric’s laptop cord. 

Varric made a good show of throwing a crumpled takeout napkin at the cat, but deliberately missed by several feet. “I still can’t believe Bull would just... call you out on all that, though.” 

“Yes. I couldn’t either. It was, in fact, unbelievable. Could we cease harping on that particular point and get back to what an ass he is?” Dorian knew he sounded plaintive, but that’s also how he felt. 

“I mean it though. I’ve known him at least twice as long as I’ve known you and he’s never--”

“I suppose I’m just that special,” Dorian responded through gritted teeth. 

“Hey, hey, look Sparkler, I’m not doubting you when you say it happened. I believe you, I’m just--”

“Surprised. I know.” Dorian finished for him. He really didn’t want to hear anything more about how sensitive Bull normally was about this sort of thing. Besides, it was entirely likely that Bull _would_ have let Dorian down gently, had Dorian allowed the man to finish a sentence before storming out. 

“I know that look.” Sera was pointing the neck of her champagne bottle at Dorian. “You’re gonna try an’ make this all your own fault somehow.” 

“Quit...knowing me. It’s rude,” Dorian sniffed when he couldn’t think of a better response. 

“Too late fucker,” Sera answered. “You’re stuck with us now.” 

“Well,” Dorian said, giving the pair of them a weak smile, “At least I have that much going for me.” 

Varric opened up their second bottle of moscato. “Yeah Sparkler, you really do.”

 

Dorian didn’t have any missed calls on his phone when he woke up, just slightly hungover, but he wasn’t disappointed. He wouldn’t want Bull to keep calling him, after all, being apologetic and kind and himself until Dorian had no other choice except to forgive him. He didn’t miss waking up to the sound of Bull’s voice.

He would eventually have to forgive Bull for the heinous crime of being a person with his own feelings, if only so they could work together with minimal awkwardness, but he was giving himself until New Years to wallow in self pity and drink more terrible moscato, first. 

Mae always said that one should start the new year as one intended to continue it. He’d find a nice boy at a friend’s party, kiss him at midnight, and go back to work like a professional adult. And if his bed felt too cold and too large, even with Harpyia in it, well. Dorian was sure he would remember how to get used to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning to everyone, we have wound up having to add in one last chapter to make everything fit, so this fic is now scheduled to end on boxing day, rather than Christmas itself!
> 
> \--Much Love and Happy Holidays from Team AU


	22. How I'll Hate Going Out In The Storm

Bull had never been much of a New Years Eve party guy. He liked parties, in general. Halloween, Fereldan independence barbeques, Iftar, whatever. But he wasn’t big on the romantic ones unless he already had a partner. Kissing someone on Valentine’s or New Years Eve, just to be kissing them, gave the kind of long-term expectations Bull didn’t feel right being unable to fulfill. And that was on a year when he _wasn’t_ going to spend the whole night thinking about someone else. 

As it was, he skyped his family, all of whom had tactfully avoided the Dorian situation, and went on a quiet, late night walk around his little suburb. It helped clear his head, somewhat, the road silent except for the occasional snatch of noise and music from someone else’s party or the rare pop-crackle of illegal bottle rockets. He resisted the urge to call Dorian again. 

His phone buzzed, and he grabbed for it quickly, but it was just a text from Isabela, wishing him a happy new year. Well, that was the gist of the message. Bull was pretty sure she wasn’t remotely sober at the time of composition. 

He was on his second loop around the block when he heard one of the parties start the countdown. Dorian was probably the type to find a nice boy to kiss when the clock struck, because Dorian was brave and went after what he wanted. He was happy that Dorian was in a place where he could do that. Mostly. Inside the party, everyone cheered, and Bull started walking again.

It would be nice if Bull himself was something that Dorian wanted, but he was enough of an adult to suck it up and be happy for the guy. Or he would be by the time he had to actually see Dorian again, at least. His phone buzzed. Definitely a call this time. Bull put it to his ear without checking the ID. 

“Hi.” Dorian’s voice was hard to hear over the music pumping on the other end of the line.

Bull fumbled the phone, double checking the caller before he put it back to his ear. “Hey,” 

“I was just thinking about-- I mean, I wanted to say…” Dorian sighed. “Can I come over? I just really want to see you.” 

“Of course,” Bull said, then before he could stop himself, “any time you want to.” 

“I... now?” 

“Yeah. Uh. Now’s good for me.” Bull was already turning towards home.

 

He’d thrown most of his dirty laundry in the hamper,cleared some mugs off his coffee table and was considering changing his clothes when Dorian knocked. 

He should have shaved. And changed clothes. 

Dorian looked cold when Bull opened the door. He looked nice, too, like he’d gone to a party, ready to impress everyone there. 

“You cut your hair,” he said inanely. It was just a trim, the undercut crisp and fresh. Bull’s fingers itched to touch it. “It looks good.” 

Dorian rubbed it self-consciously. “Well, you know, vengeance is living your best life and all that.”

“Oh.” Bull wasn’t sure he got the joke, but he felt like it might be at his expense. “Do you want to come in?”

“That would be nice.” 

Bull stood aside, watching as Dorian stepped into his house. 

“I’m sorry,” he started.

“What for?” Dorian asked, poking through Bull’s bookshelves unashamedly.

“I didn’t mean to upset you by talking about my--”

“Then let’s stop there,” Dorian snapped, then he sighed deeply. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for this to be-- what did you want to say?”

“No, it’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it now.”

Dorian sighed. “We probably should. But... later.” 

“How much later are we talking here?” Bull asked. He was pretty sure it was getting close to 2am.

“In the morning?” Dorian tried, and kissed him. 

He cupped the side of Bull’s face lightly, fingers just barely grazing his jaw. Bull leaned down to meet him, hands coming to Dorian’s hips. He could feel Dorian’s breath coming quicker, the way he pressed up against Bull, not so much eager as desperate.

“Wait,” Bull pulled back. Dorian’s eyes opened, looking hurt. “Are you sure you want to be doing this?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Dorian growled. “I’ve wanted to do this for-- for a long time.”

Bull stroked one hand across the small of Dorian’s back, trying to be soothing. “Okay,” he said, watching Dorian lean towards him again, feeling Dorian’s thumb brush his chin. “Okay.”

He kissed Dorian again, slower and more thorough. They would talk more in the morning. For now, they seemed to be communicating just fine. 

Bull leaned down to put his mouth on Dorian’s neck, leaving a trail of kisses along the left side of his throat. Dorian let out a breathy whimper at the action, clutching at Bull’s shoulders, so Bull repeated it on the other side, working his way back up to Dorian’s mouth. 

He let Dorian take the lead, trying not to push too hard. They moved slowly, more tenderly, than Bull would have expected. 

He let his hands roam, one finally coming up to pet at the short sides of Dorian’s hair, reveling in its softness. 

Dorian broke the kiss momentarily, something about his expression confused as he looked at Bull. “I said I liked it, didn’t I?” Bull asked.

Dorian smiled. “Well I think your beard s rather dashing.”

“Oh.” Bull didn’t want to move his hands away from Dorian, or he would have rubbed at the base of his horn self consciously, the way he seemed to do every time Dorian complimented him. “I just sort of forgot to shave.”

Dorian touched his jaw, tilting Bull’s head slightly to the side. “It makes you look distinguished.”

Bull hadn’t really liked the way it looked this morning, but he was willing to reconsider. “Hey, I wanna try something.”

Dorian’s grin turned sly. “Oh really?”

Looking down at him, lips dark and eyes crinkled in a smile, made Bull throw all caution into the wind. He slid his hands down the length of Dorian back and over his ass, resting on his thighs. Dorian grabbed at Bull’s shoulders as he hoisted him up, legs wrapping around Bull’s waist.

He laughed and kissed Bull again. “Now that’s more like it.”

“Yeah?” Bull could really get used to making Dorian laugh like this. He pressed him against the wall and kissed him, still laughing, and freed one hand long enough to open the bedroom door. 

 

Bull woke up later than he meant to. He’d fallen asleep playing with Dorian’s hair, making plans for coffee and pancakes, maybe in bed so that Dorian could take his time waking up.

But Dorian was already up, apparently. His shirt wasn’t on the chair where he’d tossed it, and his green sweater was nowhere to be found on the floor. 

“Dorian?” Bull called, sitting up. Dorian didn’t answer.

He got out of bed, heading to the kitchen. The quiet made him nervous. Dorian wasn’t there either, his coat and keys were gone as well. Bull looked at the front door, hoping that it would open and Dorian would walk in with--with a box of pastries or coffee from the cafe down the street--anything. But it didn’t, and the house stayed silent. Outside, it began to snow.


	23. Me, I'll Be Just Fine And Dandy

It was 9am on a Saturday and Bull sort of wanted to die. The first week back to school had been...bad, but he had mostly managed to avoid Dorian through the clever strategy of not scheduling any staff meetings ever again and skulking away whenever they were both in the staff lounge. Dorian was avoiding him, too. There hadn’t been a single fourth grader in his office since New Years. Bull sipped his coffee and tried to look like he wanted to be here. 

Everyone had noticed, Bull was pretty sure, and he hadn’t talked to anyone about it it, so he didn’t know how much of the story was public knowledge. It didn’t really matter, though, because everyone was on Dorian’s side, full story or not.

Even Josephine had been giving him disappointed looks, and had reminded him probably fifty times that week about the conflict resolution seminar this morning.

Zevran clapped his hands together, smiling widely at his captive audience. Bull tried to do the man the courtesy of not glowering at him. It wasn’t Mr. Aranai’s fault he was trapped in a conflict resolution seminar with a man he was maybe a teensy bit...had strong feelings for that didn’t want to be in a room with him. 

He was the only member of his staff who went to the effort. He had brought them all doughnuts, but even that couldn’t make up for it being 9am on Saturday morning. 

“We will begin with our names, yes?”

There was a pained grumble that could have been acquiescence. 

Names segued into ice breakers, and Bull had to admit that Zevran was a good speaker. He might have enjoyed himself if he weren’t sitting in such a way that he could almost see Dorian’s face if he leaned his elbow on the table and took a sip of his coffee at an awkward but probably believable angle. Dorian was definitely texting under the table. 

“With children of younger ages, it is often necessary to guide them through the process. Understanding one’s own feelings is a learned skill, and as educators, it is your duty to teach this. Children who are able to express their emotions, and work with their peers to solve the conflicts that may arise, have advantages as they grow. They are more able to communicate with the people around them, and have an easier time finding healthy outlets for their feelings. And we are all happier when that is the case, no?”

Varric was nodding along, clearly not taking in a word. Isabela looked rapt, but Bull suspected that her attention had more to do with Zevran’s cheekbones than the words coming out of his mouth. Aveline was dutifully taking notes like a responsible adult. 

“Children with the requisite reading and writing skills can often benefit from a worksheet, and the benefits there are not only in the questions posed to them. Some time alone in a quiet room-- as long as it does not feel like the most terrible of punishments...” Zevran went on about the benefits of the positive behavioral support exercises for some time before clapping his hand again, effectively jerking Bull out of his stupor. 

“And now we will have a practical application.” Everyone groaned. Undaunted, Zevran looked over the crowd. “Finish your doughnuts, I will be needing three volunteers.”

Isabela practically levitated out of her seat. Bull reluctantly raised his hand because he was a principal and that’s what principals are supposed to do, probably. 

No one else looked at all enthused.

“Thank you, Ms. Sirena, Mr. Charger.” Zevran waited patiently. “No one? Well. I suppose I must pick one of you then. Rest assured, my selection will bet completely random.” He shared a look with Isabela that Bull didn’t like at all. 

Everyone looked like they were trying to hide behind their coffee mugs, even Aveline.

“Mr. Pavus?” Zevran said, making a good show of searching around the room. “If you would do us the honor?”

Dorian froze, then sighed and stood up. He shoved his chair back with a bit more force than was necessary and made his way to the front of the room, standing on the other side of Isabela and Zevran, as far away from Bull as he could get.

“Thank you, Mr. Pavus, for your enthusiasm.” Zevran said, apparently oblivious to the tension. He was a pretty good actor, Bull had to admit.

“As I am a benevolent person, I have prepared a script, and will not force you to devise a scenario of your own creation. We will practice this exercise more than once, but as you are our examples, you have been spared that agony.” Zevran handed a sheet of paper to each of them. “Ms. Sirena, you shall play the role of the beleaguered and heroic educator. Mr. Charger shall be an innocent lamb of six years of age, and Mr. Pavus an over-eager playmate.”

Bull looked at the script. It was pretty short, but that didn’t make it much better.

Zevran sat down in Isabela’s empty seat. “Let us begin.”

Bull had the first line, and was in fact named _Lamb_. “Ms. Sirena,” he said woodenly.

“No, no, Mr. Charger,” Zevran cut in. “You must inhabit the child. Speak more lightly, more sadly. You were playing with blocks and your castle has been destroyed!”

Bull stared at him. Zevran smiled back beatifically.

“Ms. Sirena,” he tried to sound sad and plaintive. It was a little easier than he had wanted it to be. “Dorian knocked over my castle.”

“What a dick,” Isabela answered. Varric sniggered. Bull glanced at Zevran, but he just nodded along. Bastard. 

“It hurt my feelings,” Bull read off the script. “I wanted him to help build it, not push it down.”

“Did you try telling him that?” Isabela asked. The script called for her to comfort him.

“Uh....” Bull skipped to his next line. “I don’t want to play with him anymore.”

“More passion, Mr. Charger,” Zevran called.

“Are you fu--shitting me? She just went completely off script and---” 

“This sounds like a problem-solving opportunity that we can resolve later,” Zevran said smoothly. Varric looked highly entertained. Merrill was clearly experiencing some severe second-hand embarrassment. 

“I’ll go talk to Dorian, Ashkaari,” Isabela said. “You find a nice picture book to read.”

That, at least, was technically in the script. 

“Dorian,” Isabela said grandly, “Did you knock over Ashkaari’s castle?”

Dorian sighed heavily. “I thought that was the game we were playing,” he said. His reading was a lot more invested than Bull’s.

“Why did you think that?” Isabela asked sympathetically.

“Well he didn’t tell me otherwise!” Dorian snapped. 

Zevran beamed at him and said, “please stay on script, Mr. Pavus,” without even a hint of sincerity. 

Bull was starting to feel a little ganged up on. Aveline was still taking notes. 

“Do you think we should talk about it all together?” Isabela asked, skipping most of the way down the page. 

“Yes,” Bull said.

“No,” Dorian grumbled.

“Why the fuck not?” Isabela asked Dorian, irritated. Varric barely concealed his snort.

“Because there’s nothing to talk about. I--we built a castle, I knocked it over, now he’s upset. I already know what he’s going to say.” 

“Do you.” Isabela’s voice was a little bit dangerous. Bull almost preferred it when he was the one getting ganged up on. 

“Yes. He’s going to say ‘Please don’t knock over my castle, Dorian,’ and then say we can’t play together anymore. It’s right there in the script.” Dorian pointed at it on the paper.

“Or is he going to say ‘we can both build the castle and knock it over together, let’s just agree on which is happening so we can both have fun,’” Isabela countered, flipping the page over to the back.

Dorian turned his own page over, brow furrowed and reading quickly. 

“Okay, everyone,” Zevran stood up quickly. “time to break for lunch. There are many many sub-par sandwiches for you to enjoy!”

The sandwiches were indeed sub-par. Bull ate his in a back corner of the room, giving everyone else the chance to mingle without their boss looming over them. He couldn’t help glancing at Dorian, who was still pretty focused on the script in his hand. Bull tried not to be too creepy, but once, he looked over and Dorian was looking back. They locked eyes for a moment. Dorian quickly looked away.


	24. Following Yonder Star

Dorian always looked forward to the January trip to the Air and Space Museum. He picked up part of Felix’s birthday present at the gift shop-- this year it was a replica of Satina, craters and all, that lit up like a night light, was able to get out of the classroom, and he was invariably privy to the moment that a future astrophysicist dreams began.

It was also a chance to mingle, to actually chat with his coworkers and friends, which was always nice. Before, he’d often seek Bull out as well, sometimes in the museum’s cafe, where they sold cookies shaped like rocket ships, or in the planetarium, watching the stars spin slowly overhead.

Not any more, of course, and he should probably just try to forget all of that. 

At least Varric was there to help, as much as Varric ever helped anything. They were loitering near the moons exhibit on the second floor, which gave a decent view of where most of their classes were clustered around a large projection screen. Dorian thought it might be a video on the evolution of flight technology, but he wasn’t sure.

“Distracted?” That Varric even asked was a bad sign.

“Just pondering the possibility of life on other planets,” Dorian responded. “For myself, specifically. Do you know of any nice neighborhoods in the Periquialid cluster? The Draconian nebula perhaps?”

“Nah, you don’t need to go anywhere.” 

Dorian reflected that Bull was at least kind enough to have not told the entire staff he had fucked Dorian out of sheer pity and awkwardness. “It’s something of a habit, I’m afraid. I embarrass myself utterly-- in public-- and then vanish in such a dramatic fashion that no one notices my tail between my legs.”

Varric frowned. “Sparkler, I don’t think--”

Dorian raised a hand to stop him. “No commentary, please. I’m wallowing.”

“You know that no one thinks you’re in the wrong, don’t you? Tiny’s been different since he got promoted, and not always in a good way.”

“Tiny?” Dorian asked.

Varric chuckled. “Yeah, that’s one thing. Kinda weird to call your boss by a nickname like that.”

“True,” Dorian said. “How do you mean different? I never knew him when he was a teacher.”

Varric frowned. “I mean more...reserved, maybe? We all used to be a lot closer with him. He was the life of the party. But he pulled away and I guess we all kinda did too? Hard to invite the boss to a brunch where you’re gonna drink mimosas and bitch about the boss.”

“Do you think he’s… lonely?” Dorian asked before he could stop himself. 

“I think he’s professional,” Varric said tactfully. “Don’t go feeling sorry for him, I’m sure he’s got plenty of friends outside of work.”

Dorian nodded.

When the video ended, the students divided themselves into tour groups with two chaperones apiece. Dorian watched Ms. Montilyet hand out the chaperone pair assignments in much the same way wild rams must watch oncoming cars. “...Varric with Ms. Pentaghast--thank you again for volunteering. Engaged parents are truly the lifeblood of our school system--and I believe that just leaves Mr. Pavus and Principal Charger.” 

“Of course it does,” Dorian muttered darkly. Josephine had enough dirt on every member of the staff to have them all killed thrice over but Dorian would find a way to get her back for this. 

Varric left him to go stand next to Daniel’s terrifying single mother. He even looked sort of nonchalant and put together about it. At least someone’s romantic life was making forward progress, Dorian supposed. 

He greeted Bull stiffly, and took their printed itinerary from Ms. Montilyet while Bull tried to wrangle the children into a straight line. There was only one copy, of course, and Dorian dithered a moment over whether he wanted the feeling of control that came with a clipboard and pen, or if he wanted to avoid the responsibility.

When Bull came up to ask where they were headed first, he practically shoved the thing at him. He went down the line of students, all from his own class, to confirm that no one had been forgotten, and stationed himself behind Theron at the back.

“Let’s follow Principal Charger to the History of The Universe exhibit!” he said, mustering a passable show of enthusiasm.

“They’ve got videos of stars _exploding_!” Bull’s fake enthusiasm was much better than his own. 

The students followed him like a line of ducklings, chattering excitedly. Not one of them wandered off.

Perhaps Bull’s enthusiasm wasn’t faked at all, Dorian realized, watching him watch “A Star Is Born” along with Dorian’s class. They’d both seen the video before-- Dorian would probably hear the narration in his sleep tonight-- but Bull looked as enthralled as he might have the first time.

Once the credits rolled, most of the students followed Bull to a crafting table covered in glitter and markers to draw their own nebulas and quasars. Theron, ever the puffy paint skeptic, hesitated, then joined Dorian in the corner. “Mr. Pavus?” 

“Yes, Theron?” Dorian tried to look like he hadn’t been gazing plaintively at the principal. 

“What’s wrong with you and Principal Charger?” 

Dorian blanched. “Whatever do you mean, Theron?

“You looked upset when he came over here and you haven’t sent anyone to the office since school got back. Not even when Guenivere said ‘capitalism’ or when Monica said ‘bullshit.’” 

“Those were just...ah, problem-solving opportunities. There was no need to get Principal Charger involved, that’s all.” Dorian was lying. To a child. 

“I think Principal Charger could have helped,” Theron said doubtfully. 

“Don’t you want to draw some nebulas?” Dorian asked him.

Theron shook his head and took a deep breath, like he was nervous. “Are you mad at him because before Christmas you sent me to the office because I said capitalism instead of crap and then Principal Charger told me to tell you censorship is a bad word and then I did? You looked kind of mad. I’m sorry.”

“No, Theron, I’m not--” Dorian sighed and sat down so he was closer to Theron’s height. “It’s not your fault, I promise. Sometimes grownups get hurt feelings too, and that’s all that happened.”

“But you are mad at him.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, I’m afraid.”

“When I get mad at my sister my dad makes us take turns saying why we’re mad and then we compromise,” Theron said. “It’s not fun. Sometimes I have to share my army guys. But you should try it. Dad says it works.”

“Thank you, Theron, I’ll think about it.” Dorian stood up. “Let’s go go paint some galaxies, all right?”

Bull smiled hesitantly at him when they sat down at the table, and Dorian tried not to grimace too terribly in return. The last time Bull had smiled at him was just before he’d fallen asleep. 

He’d wanted to have a memory to hold onto, something good with Bull to stop himself from being bitter. He tried to tell himself he’d only wanted a kiss, but he couldn’t pretend not to want everything Bull gave him, even if it was out of pity.

Compromises were shitty, Dorian decided, and turned to his right, where Delia was mixing glitter into brown paint. It seemed an apt analogy, and he focused on helping her paint a night sky.

 

Dorian was nervous from the moment he put his house key into the lock. Specifcally, he was nervous because his lock was already opened. He supposed it was possible he could have forgotten to lock his door this morning in the rush to get out the door for the field trip. It had never happened before, but there was always a first time. 

Dorian unlocked his phone, punching in the emergency number and stepping over the threshold with his finger hovering over the green call symbol. His kitchen light was on. He rounded the corner, fully aware that he was actually a cliche from a horror movie, and found Skinner, sitting cross-legged on his kitchen table, sipping coffee out of his princess mug. 

“I do have chairs,” was the only thing Dorian could think to say. 

“Your chairs are stupid and so are you.” 

“Can I do something for you, or did you just break into my home to insult me and drink my coffee?” Dorian asked.

Skinner scowled. “I have your pajama shirt. We retrieved it after protracted negotiations with Spork.” She held up a mailing envelope, presumably with Dorian’s lost pajama top inside of it. 

“Um, thank you for--” 

“I also have Tama’s pictures.” 

“Oh I really don’t need copies of--” It occured to Dorian that he was trying to back politely out of his own kitchen. 

“They are not copies. I took the originals.” She produced a second envelope, this one much thinner than the first. 

Dorian stared at her. “Tama’s going to kill you.”

Skinner shrugged. “I made it look like Krem did it. Someone had to.”

“They really didn’t.” 

Skinner’s eyes narrowed. “Grim tried to convince you, but Grim doesn’t like arguing. I do. I am very good at it. People pay me six hundred sovereigns an hour to argue for them. So.” She waved the envelope threateningly.

“So?” Dorian folded his arms. He was pretty sure if Skinner had planned to kill him, he would have been stabbed to death already. 

“Exhibit A,” Skinner announced, slapping a photograph down on the table. It was a polaroid, the type with the heavy white frame that developed on the spot. A candid shot of the kitchen while he, Krem and Dalish made latkes. Bull was there, watching from the doorway in the back corner of the frame, behind where Dorian was swearing at his grater.

Dorian swallowed. 

“Exhibit B,” Bull, straightening Dorian’s tie one last time, their menorah behind them waiting to be lit. The picture showed them in profile, Dorian’s eyes were fixed somewhere over Bull’s shoulder, laughing at something out of frame. Bull’s eye, though, was entirely focused on Dorian’s face, his hands somehow lingering even in the still photograph.

“Exhibit C.” At first Dorian thought it was just a picture of Bull on the couch, but he saw his own hair peeking out of the pile of blankets next to him, his face apparently turned against Bull’s chest. Bull’s arm was wrapped around Dorian, and he was looking down, a soft smile on his face. He looked happy, genuinely so. Dorian had seen enough of him with his family to recognize the expression.

Skinner kept going after that. Bull laughing at one of Dorian’s jokes, Dorian grinning soppily at Bull while cleaning a splotch of flour from his nose, Bull feeding him a peanut butter cookie, both of them holding hands early Christmas morning. Skinner ran out of letters before she ran out of film. 

Dorian picked the polaroids up gingerly, to look at them more closely. Bull looked at him like... well, if he were being perfectly honest with himself, Bull looked at him like he looked at Bull. “He was... happy. With me.”

Skinner nodded. “More than happy.” She slid a last picture towards him. Dorian thought this one might have been taken by Lace--the angle too low for Tama’s considerable height. It was from when he’d fallen asleep Christmas Eve. The camera looked up into Bull’s face as he carried Dorian to bed. Dorian smiled into Bull’s chest, sleepy and content, while Bull cradled him, looking utterly at peace with his lips pressed to Dorian’s hair. 

“This...” Dorian took a deep breath. “This isn’t how people look when they’re pretending.” 

“No, it isn’t.” 

“He...had feelings for me?” Dorian knew his voice sounded small. He let out a bitter laugh. “God but I’m an idiot.” 

“You’re both idiots,” Skinner said, not unkindly.

Dorian nodded, swallowing hard against the emotion welling in his throat. “So, on Christmas, when he took me aside...he was trying to tell me, wasn’t he?” 

Skinner shrugged. “I assume. I leave knowing for certain to Grim.” 

Dorian pulled up a chair, letting his knees give under him. He laid his head down on the table next to Skinner’s knee, allowing her to stroke his hair. The feeling was soothing, and Dorian tried to time his breathing with the motion. He had been resoundingly awful to Bull that day, had felt so sure it was justified at the time. He realized now he hadn’t let the man get a word in edgewise.

“He thinks he screwed everything up, and thinks you want him to give you space now.” Skinner’s voice carried no judgment, either for Bull or for him. 

“I don’t want space. I want--” Dorian buried his head further into his own arms, choking off the last word. 

“Perhaps you could tell him that.” Skinner slid off the table, heedless of the way the whole thing wobbled. 

Dorian brought his head back up to look at her. “I will. I--you’ll have to excuse me. I think I have something I need to do.” 

Skinner gave him a curt nod. “I will get Tama to send you copies of her pictures once she has time to make them. You seem like you will want to keep them around.” She poured another cup of coffee into Dorian’s second favorite travel mug and then was gone. 

Dorian set his briefcase on the table and began rummaging through it. There was something he had to find.


	25. It's Grand Just Holding Your Hand

Bull was ready to go home. He was going to take a long bubble bath, watch some reality tv and eat a lot of ice cream. It had been a long day, so he was probably going to do all of that at once.

It had been a long year, and he was only two weeks in. He made his way to the office, waving at the kids heading out to the busses and carpool lot, ready to put on his coat and not come back until Monday morning.

Josephine met him at the door. “I texted you, but you left your phone here. I’m so sorry Principal Charger, but I’ve had to add a last minute meeting to your itinerary today.” Bull did his best to look like he wasn’t dying inside. At this point in his career, he’d at least had a bit of practice. 

“On a scale of one to fuck, how long will this take?”

Josephine smiled serenely. “You should fix your tie.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Bull said in a tone of voice that probably wasn’t too whiny. But Josephine knew what was best for everyone, so he straightened his tie. “Is it the head of the PTA board again?”

“Just go in,” she said.

Bull opened the door.

Dorian was sitting in his visitor’s chair, arms crossed and feet up on the desk, looking every inch the petulant child. Bull hesitated in his doorway, unsure what kind of game they were playing today. 

“I won’t bite,” Dorian said irritably. 

“You’ve met my family,” Bull answered, settling himself cautiously in the chair next to Dorian’s. He did that sometimes, when a kid looked really scared. “You can see why it’s not something I’d consider out of the question.” 

“On the contrary, I found your family delightful.” He fell silent.

“Did you get Varric to cover carpool duty, then barter with Josephine to schedule a last minute meeting on a Friday afternoon so you could tell me you aren’t going to bite me?” 

Dorian uncrossed his arms, then folded them back again. “I have... paperwork. For you to sign. And go over. With me.”

“Paperwork,” Bull repeated.

Dorian produced a folder from beside his chair, handing it to Bull and then looking away, flushed but pretending for all the world that there was something extremely fascinating on the opposite wall. 

There was just one piece of paper inside, a five-part questionnaire that was filled out in Dorian’s textbook perfect copperplate. Bull could tell he’d spent extra time on the serifs.

“Is this the problem solving sheet from Mr. Aranai’s workshop?” he asked.

“Well it’s not a letter from the Matriarch of Rivain.” Dorian was still staring resolutely at anything that wasn’t Bull. “Just read it.”

_1\. What happened to upset me?_

_I was upset because Bull told me he didn’t feel the same way I did, and I made the perfectly reasonable assumption that he knew how I felt about him when he said that. And then again when he tried to bring it up on New Years and I thought he was just letting me know he pitied me like an asshole._

_2\. What did I do about those emotions?_

_I stormed out before Bull could explain himself._  
_I didn’t tell him how I felt, and then ignored all his calls because I was scared_  
_I fucked him without explaining myself._  
_I left again before he could reject me, which was a completely rational assumption given the information I had._

_3\. How did my reaction affect the people around me?_

_Grim had to drive me home_  
_Krem owes Lace 50 sovereigns_  
_Skinner had to come down from (where does she live??) and break into my apartment with a bunch of soppy family pictures to return my pajama top and yell at me._  
_I hurt Bull. A lot._  
_Spork was forced to stop sleeping on a perfectly nice pajama top that he had rightfully appropriated._

_4\. What do I want other people to do differently from now on?_

_I wish that other people would ask me what my feelings actually are, rather than assume. I wish that Skinner would wait for me to let her into my house rather than picking the lock. Everything else is my fault._

_5\. What will I do differently from now on?_

_The next time Bull asks me to be his fake boyfriend I am just going to tell him that I would rather be his real boyfriend and ask to kiss him upfront instead of pining stupidly for--_ a phrase was viciously scribbled out _\--a long time. I also plan to stop running away whenever Bull tries to have an emotional conversation. Probably. I at least plan to try my best, provided I am given the opportunity to do so. Because I care about Bull a lot and I want him to be happy. Preferably with me, in an explicitly committed and romantic sense, but happy most of all._

Bull cleared his throat. “The uh, the Skinner thing.” 

“Mmm?” Dorian was boring a hole into Bull’s wall clock with his eyes. 

“It’s--it’s never gonna happen. We’ve been trying to uh, stop her from doing that for... years, now.” 

“And the rest?” Dorian asked, turning to face Bull at last. 

"The rest of this is definitely workable,” was all Bull could manage. 

_____Dorian’s face was so hopeful it almost caused Bull pain. “I may need you to spell this out for me In...explicit terms.”_ _ _ _ _

_____Bull took both Dorian’s hands in his. “I’d really like to kiss you, both now and as an ongoing...thing. Also date you, for real this time. And make you happy. And bring you home to my family, who occasionally do bite. That okay?”_ _ _ _ _

_____“If Spork only knew how you slander him,” Dorian said. “Yes. yes, that’s okay. Wonderful, in fact. Maybe perfect.”_ _ _ _ _

_____“I thought-- I kept thinking about how well you fit with them… with me, really. You just looked right when you were in my Tama’s house, and you looked right in my home, too. Everything was just easy, with you, and fun. I got used to sleeping next to you, and waking up next to you, so quickly. I’ve been having trouble sleeping since, honestly. Not that it’s your responsibility to fix that, I just mean--”_ _ _ _ _

_____“Bull.”_ _ _ _ _

_____Bull stopped babbling._ _ _ _ _

_____Dorian stroked a thumb over Bull’s hand. “You said you wanted to kiss me?”_ _ _ _ _

_____“Yeah.” Bull nodded. “Pretty much all the time. It’s been kind of distracting. I have a job, you know.”_ _ _ _ _

_____“And right now?” Dorian disentangled one hand to bring up to Bull’s face, leaning closer as he did. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled._ _ _ _ _

_____“Even more than usual.”_ _ _ _ _

_____“Good.” Dorian kissed him. It was better than the first time. More confident. Bull pressed in closer, knowing he was wanted there._ _ _ _ _

_____Dorian held him close, fingertips sliding from his jaw to the back his neck. Bull wondered if he could feel his pulse rushing, if Dorian knew what this felt like for him to finally-- finally be here. It was possible Dorian felt the same way._ _ _ _ _

_____He would have happily stayed like that forever, just feeling Dorian’s hands on his skin, but he pulled back. They were still in his office after all._ _ _ _ _

_____Dorian opened his eyes with clear reluctance. “I’m not pleased that you’ve stopped.”_ _ _ _ _

_____“Should I fill out one of those forms too?” Bull asked, stroking Dorian’s cheek._ _ _ _ _

_____Dorian laughed. “Not right now.”_ _ _ _ _

_____“You have other plans for the evening?”_ _ _ _ _

_____“For the whole weekend, I hope.” Dorian kissed him again, softly._ _ _ _ _

_____“I’ll turn it in on Monday morning then.” School be damned, Bull leaned back in._ _ _ _ _

_____The office door burst open._ _ _ _ _

_____“Oh!” Merrill said, blinking at the pair of them. “I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. Ms. Montilyet told me not to come into the office unless the school was on fire, but you see, the kiln, it sort of--um. Well. There was a slight problem.”_ _ _ _ _

_____“Did you call the fire department?” Bull asked._ _ _ _ _

_____“No, it’s been contained. But it’s still, um. Scorched. And so is the classroom. So, I figured you should probably…”_ _ _ _ _

_____Bull glanced at the clock. It was, technically, after hours. “Merrill, could you give us just a minute? I’ll be right there.”_ _ _ _ _

_____“Oh, Of course. Sorry.” Merrill closed the door._ _ _ _ _

_____Dorian smiled at him. “Duty calls.”_ _ _ _ _

_____“I’m sorry,” Bull said. “I’ve gotta go get some sponges and... It might be a while.”_ _ _ _ _

_____“Don’t be sorry.” Dorian kissed his cheek, then stood up and put the paper back in his briefcase. “We’ll need laundry detergent and some all purpose cleaner. There’s got to be some in a supply closet somewhere.”_ _ _ _ _

_____“And vinegar?” Bull suggested._ _ _ _ _

_____“I’m on it.” He was already getting out of his seat. “You check the staff lounge for laundry detergent and those foam sponges that work on everything, I’ll try the janitor’s supply and the art room.”_ _ _ _ _

_____“Thank you,” Bull said. “I mean it though, I’m sorry. For-- for a lot of things. We’ll have a real conversation soon, I promise. And a real date.”_ _ _ _ _

_____Dorian’s smile was soft, but real. “Don’t worry,” he said, kissing him once more. “We’ve got plenty of time.”_ _ _ _ _


End file.
